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Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2005 09:35:30 +0200 From: Eddy Petrisor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: debian-l10n-romanian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, rlug@lug.ro, [EMAIL PROTECTED], Romanian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Anunt TMLUG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, GNOME Romania <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, KDE Romania <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [kde-i18n-ro] Concluzii legate de Conferinta pe teme de localizare din Belgrad 1-3 July 2005 Salut, Ca participant la Conferinta pe teme de localizare din Belgrad 1-3 July 2005 m-am simtit dator sa fac un document cu concluziile la care am ajuns. Atasat este un asemenea document. Lectura placuta si sper sa vad mai multa activitate pe listele de localizare romnesti. -- Regards, EddyP ============================================= "Imagination is more important than knowledge" A.Einstein -- IOnut Unregistered ;) FreeBSD "user" "Intellectual Property" is nowhere near as valuable as "Intellect"
Ideas and Conclusions after the Localization conference Belgrade (1-3 july 2005) by Eddy Petriºor During the first three days of July, Belgrade was the place for localization talks and discussions in the Balkans area. The call was made to all the countries in the area by Linux Center's (Belgrade) representative, Vedran Vucic. Supported by Open Society Foundation, this conference couldn't have been a failed effort. And it was not. Participants from Bosnia and Hertzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro came to expose what they have learned and to learn from each other what could be done to improve their lifes as translators for applications and documentation in the Free Software world. The Hungarians tought us how to make money for our organizations, in order to use them for special events; the Bosnians and others told us about the translation marathons, a way to get huge amounts of translation done in a short time, with the downside of a not so unitary translation, if the rules are not set correctly. The Croatians showed us the localization framework that they use, a great tool, which I promised to make public for Debian, after the Croatians translate it into English. Experience talked through the mouth of the Bulgarian representative, as he told us about the downside of the translation marathons. Serbians made us aware of the fact that some English phrasings are untranslatable in their language, so they asked us to help them in making free software developers aware of these problems. Romanians started a road trip together with the Serbians in building infrastructures for default localized desktop environments in their own languages, colaborating with each other in the technical field to make their goals possible in the Debian distribution. This will envolve specialized tasks for the tasksel program, aspell dictionaries, packaging and supporting each other with information regarding their findings, promoting each other's ideas within the Debian distribution and many other things. The organizers promised to create a dedicated site for the colaboration of people involved in localization in the Balkans area. Also a mailing list was promised, thus opening the gates for colaboration between all the interested people in the area. Before the mailing list would happen, before the site would be up, the participants exchanged email addresses in order to start their colaboration before the things were official. If you thought that free software is just a bunch of hippies that have no purpose in life but to discuss about freedom without doing anything through official ways, well you were wrong. Some official organizations sent their representatives to prove us: Free Software Hungary, I-Space from Bulgaria and Metamorphosis from Macedonia showed us that free software has a practical meaning and use; having an official organization to promote it is a good thing for a country and a gain for everybody. As a conclusion, the conference in Belgrade was just the opening for a series of events that will get together people around the Balkans, and probably other areas, too, in order to help them understand each other's problems and overcome the issues that stop or slow them in reaching their goal of fully localized applications, starting with the interface and covering the manuals and help documentation. Appendix A Stupid people learn only through their own experience, smart people through everybody's - translation marathons are good, but the downside must be avoided through a good recompensation system - gettext support is still incomplete, as the support for cases and genders is scarce; support is needed - political problems must be circumvented; we don't need to get involved in them - get the money from firms for your work and if the firms do not share, use the experience and money in a translation marathon to cover the coresponding free software counter part - some firms are open to colaboration - they would do a part of the translation, while we do the other - a unique project per language is the first step towards success - home grown sofware can exchanged in order to facilitate everybody's work - most users would use free software, if localized - for glosary management, translators can be assigned grades, higher grade means higher trust - other translators or people can be interested to deliver exactly what you want for your language, so ask first, you might find help - there are many places that support free software projects, use them - managing translations can only be made through a standardized method, so version control systems, l10n frameworks, glosaries are the base of a successful l10n project - free software tools are available, use them; if none satifies you, expand an existing one, or create a new one - use a free license for the tools you make and share with others, they will thank you
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