Re: [native-lang] Status update season!

Hello Charles and everybody else :)

On 14/12/2006, at 9:12 PM, Charles-H.Schulz wrote:
>>
>> VI: we would have released yesterday but...
>
> First, let me congratulate you and your team for the job you did for
> Vi.OOo. You may feel frustrated but for a first shot, it's really not
> bad at all. You'll know better for the next time.

I certainly hope so!
>
> OOo may suffer from a lack of information, but I think that it is also
> because it is a complex software. I'm also partly responsible if  
> you did
> not know there was a separate QA project here on OOo. Some information
> should be clarified I guess.

I strongly suggest we have a basic Howto for l10n projects. It  
doesn't need to be long and complex, but it can include items like:

  • the need to sign and send in the JCA
	which I found out by asking questions, only two days before I had to  
submit our translation)

  • where QA fits in the release process
	which I found out too late, by asking questions, a day before release)

  • the mailing lists you need to join to keep track of l10n issues,  
e.g.
	com@NLP for announcements, especially about needed translations
	dev@NLP for overall i18n issues
	dev@l10n for l10n issues
	releases to see announcements of builds etc.
	announce to see pan-project announcements
	survey@marketing to discuss translating the user survey
and I'm probably missing quite a few. :(

If someone who actually understood the whole i18n overview, sat down  
and imagined they knew absolutely nothing about OOo, and summarized  
what a new person _needs_ to know about OOo to achieve a release,  
that would be a huge help to all of us and especially those starting  
out.

I've only got from one point to another in OOo by feeling my way  
around and asking a lot of questions. It's been very inefficient, and  
has taken up a lot of time I could have used to get the tasks done.  
And in the end, it meant a blocked release and major arrangements  
throughout Vietnam hanging on it. Because I didn't know what I was  
going. God knows I must have asked enough questions to find out. But  
I didn't find out. And really, we should have some basic information  
to avoid that sort of blundering around.
	
>
> As a comment however, I don't think that projects like KDE or Mozilla
> are less complex in their processes, at least it does not look like it
> on their web site.

I have managed to avoid Mozilla so far, although the nets are closing  
in: the same friend who decoyed me into Ooo has referred the Mozilla  
people to me. ;)

But I can speak with personal experience of KDE, GNOME, Debian, the  
TP and nearly a score of other free-software projects.

No matter how complex the project may be, the i18n list concentrates  
all the information needed by translators. The minute you join the  
list, you are welcomed and referred to the Howtos. The list gets all  
announcements you need to see, including reminders about deadlines,  
checking and submission procedures. You have all the information you  
need.

I myself write that type of welcome email several times a week. If  
you create a template (which I should do, and haven't got around to  
doing), you can do it fairly quickly, and not miss anything. Then you  
know the new entrant knows the basics.
>
> Thank you for your contribution and this first "not so ready" release,
> Clytie.

Thankyou for your help and encouragement, Charles. :)

I just wish I could have done a better job of it. I am trying to get  
over the shock of having no release where one was planned to occur,  
and to do both damage control and missing QA at the same time.  
However, I still need people to do the QA. <sigh>

from Clytie (vi-VN, Vietnamese free-software translation team / nhóm  
Việt hóa phần mềm tự do)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/vi-VN