[OSGeo-Discuss] Manage translation in OSGeo project

[Yves Jacolin]

Le lundi 25 août 2008 22:09, Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) a écrit :
> On 25-Aug-08, at 12:32 PM, Markus Neteler wrote:
> > And it's rather easy to set up with gettext() macros in C land (to not
> > pollute the
> > source code). Likewise there will be solutions for other
> > programming languages.
>
> In a couple (non-OSGeo) projects I've helped on the translation side
> but editing XML files for each locale.  Each local.xml file entry has
> a keyword that points back to the PHP page that includes the keyword
> pointer.  These were PHP apps, so maybe only common on web
> platforms?  Do any OSGeo projects use a similar approach?
>
> Tyler
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Hi,

I don't think this is a technical problem, but rather a psychological one. As 
translator aims to be not developper guys (I spent some time to explain that 
we don't need to be a developper to act in FOSS project) we need to allow 
them to translate easily, that's means not afraid this people asking to 
manage C++ or xml files ;)

I definitively get some problem to welcome people for translating OSGeo 
journal because LaTeX are not enough user friendly. Both of us needs to do 
some effort to work together.

Marcus Neteler propose a web gui for managing translator (am I wrong? I don't 
remember the url of this application). But seems good (never tested). 

Furthermore, I think that a document as the one wrote by Eric S Raymond about 
how asking smart question [1] but rather "how people can act in (OSGeo) 
project" could be interesting. I began to write it in french in the wiki [2] 
(how to crontribute) which need to be modified a lot. This document explain 
all the things taht not-developper could realize and how they could contact 
developper, if needed.

To give an example, few monthes ago I contacted the OpenLayers team (in privat 
email) to propose some ideas to create some new documentations in french and 
put it on the OL wiki. The answer was really positive ( :) ) while they 
should be redirect me on the mailing list (contact them in private mail is 
bad) but I was afraid to change anything: do am I right to change so much 
thing in this project? I did not think so. Even if I will be back soon to 
contribute I stoped my contribution as soon as I began it :( in addition, 
main developper did not know about how manage translation of the 
documentation inside the project. I know, it should be better to propose 
something to OL projet ;)

Best regards,

Y
[1] : http://www.gnurou.org/writing/smartquestionsfr (French) or 
http://www.catb.org/%7Eesr/faqs/smart-questions.html (English)
[2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Howto_fr_contribuer
-- 
Yves Jacolin
-------------
"Donner la liberté aux individus ne suffit pas, il faut aussi leur donner du 
pouvoir, de la puissance d'agir." M Gauchet

"Give freedom to people is not enough, we also have to give them the power to 
use this freedom, to act". M Gauchet
-------------
http://yjacolin.gloobe.org
http://softlibre.gloobe.org