Message Translation in OSGeo software projects

[Markus Neteler]

Hi,

a known obstacle to use FOSS Desktop GIS software (maybe
also WebGIS solutions) are the user messages which are often
not translated from English to other languages.

In the GRASS project, we have ongoing efforts to translate
the (thousands) of messages into various languages:
http://grass.itc.it/devel/i18n.php

While this sort of works, translators always have to download
the entire message files and submit changes. A problem arises
if different people want to translate for the same language.
We would better use a Web based solution, at least as an
option (since not everybody has a flat rate network connection).

As a test I had registered GRASS in Launchpad:
https://launchpad.net/products/grass6
but we never used it due to the (to me) unclear copyright
situation of the translated messages.

I would like to see that OSGeo comes up with a translation
portal which could be extended to tutorials as well (maybe
embedded into the EduCom Wikibook efforts). This could be
a nice way to get  non-programmers involved.

Opinions, suggestions?

best,
Markus

-- 
Open Source Geospatial Foundation
http://www.osgeo.org/