[OSGeo-Discuss] Message Translation in OSGeo software projects

[Jody Garnett]

We have talked about how to set up such a thing (perl script talking to 
svn) for the uDig project, Richard & Paul have not had the chance to do 
anything about it - but I am sure they could share their thinking.

Cheers,
Jody
> 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?