Re: [Savannah-hackers-public] Re: Pootle server at Savannah

[Sylvain Beucler]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 01:32:41AM +0200, Yavor Doganov wrote:
> Sylvain Beucler wrote:
> > 
> > Is there any interest to install it at Savannah?
> 
> For the time being -- no, at least as far as web-translators are
> concerned.  RMS promised a separate server for our stuff (mostly
> because the FSF admins are always lagging, and this would require many
> tweaks/interventions, at least in the beginning), although I'd be more
> than happy to have such a thing under your control :-)
> 
> I know nothing about such web services, and I despise them immensely,
> especially for translations.
> 
> Among the other tools (references below), I think Pootle is what would
> serve us best.  We basically want the following:
> 
> * GNUN will update the PO files in www's repo.  We could develop a
>   daemon that could speak to the webapp, but it would be better if the
>   latter is VCS-aware and can pick up updates directly via CVS.
> * The Pootle server should fetch these updated pot/po files
>   automatically, and provide a way for the people for whom "using a
>   computer" == "using a web browser" to contribute (surprisingly,
>   there are many).
> * The PO files edited via Pootle should never be installed in www.
>   They should be marked somehow in Pootle's interface, and changes
>   mailed to the respective co-ordinator (preferrably a diff).  The
>   co-ordinator may choose to direct these notifications to a mailing
>   list, and only install them *manually* in www after the team's
>   review process is done.
> 
> Basically, we want to hook the pot/po files in www into some web
> interface mostly for statistics (just like Damned Lies --
> http://l10n.gnome.org) plus eventually editing for those who don't
> know another way, provided that the points above are doable.  Such a
> web-service will undoubtedly be a second citizen (i.e. it should not
> be required to use it in order to contribute translations), and that's
> how it should be.  I don't want to commit a harakiri by doing my
> translations in a stupid HTML box :-)
> 
> There is a fundamental problem with Pootle, that it chokes on large
> data.  That is why the Debian i18n people are still not using their
> Pootle server for production work (and debconf templates are short, as
> you know very well -- I can only imagine what would happen with the
> essays).  I don't remember from the discussions on the Debian i18n and
> Pootle lists whether the problem was related to mutliple PO files,
> large PO files, or both.
> 
> > (or maybe another tool I don't know?)
> 
> This is what has been proposed so far; I haven't had the time to
> review all the tools extensively (even Pootle):
> 
> Pootle           was proposed by the Pootle developers years ago
> Entrans          http://entrans.sourceforge.net/demo/main.php
> Poliglota  https://tracker.gnulinuxmatters.org/wiki/Poliglota
> CLWE     http://www.wiki-translation.com
> Ikiwiki          http://ikiwiki.info (not actually proposed by anyone, but
>          it is used by the Hurd folks and a native translation
>          plugin using po4a is under development)
> 
> 
> As for the installation of Pootle at Savannah -- we're not ready to do
> anything web-related yet (unless someone with knowledge and skills
> chimes in), but I guess having a Pootle installation won't do any
> harm.  On the contrary, it would enable the brave (and those
> interested in such an interface) to experiment, provided it is not
> disruptive for the Savannah hackers' workflow.

Thanks for the info.

I believe a web-based, even if not as functional as POedit or po-mode,
can help people with little technical skills - and there's probably
room for improvement. For FreeDink I wrote some POedit documentation,
but even that sounds a bit tedious
http://www.freedink.org/doc/translate/

Pootle is probably more oriented to translate software rather than
webpages.

For the workflow I agree it's best if .po are not immediately imported
from Pootle, but reviewed first. For software I wonder if there's an
easy way to support multiple branches (e.g. the latest stable release
and the current trunk).

Pootle (more exactly translate-toolkit) support reading from VCSes,
but may require a special directory structure - I have to test.

I guess the main problem with the workflow is when some people in a
team want to use Pootle, and some others want to use other tools. But
I guess there's always a problem when there are multiple people
working on a single .po anyway...

I think I'll try to install Pootle in a simple way, but we probably
need to get contacts in the dev team first. I'm also interested in
installing a Free translation system, since there's some proprietary
competition these days (namely from canonical).

-- 
Sylvain