Re: [OT] Storms (Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue))

[Tim Dijkstra]

On Wed, 14 May 2003 09:28:53 +0200
Martin Godisch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 09:02:20 +0200, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña
> wrote:
> 
> > "Tormenta en un vaso de agua" in Spanish. So it seems that french
> > and spanish drink more water than tea.
> 
> "Sturm im Wasserglas" in German. ;-)

"Storm in een glas water" in Dutch.

Tim

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Fabio Massimo Di Nitto]

On Tue, 20 May 2003, Gustavo Noronha Silva wrote:

> > We asked why the removal of the number «3» from the word «PHP3» caused
> > the format of the whole description to the changed.  We asked _why_,
> > we did not say «do not do this».  First, we wanted to know why.  Then,
> > we might want to ask it to be changed back.
> >
> > Somehow, this whole discussion has been blown completely out of
> > propositions.
>
> I think this's been answered a lot of times, and Fabiano is not
> really asking why, he's telling us 'do not do this'.

*cough*Fabio*cough* ;) no. i did ask which is the procedure (that involves
people to contact) in order to have information about a description and if
there was a common way to have it changed back, I did not wrote explicity
why because i expected a reason back from the translator/translation team,
but tell me if I am wrong if i shouldn't expected so. This was my original
question to grisu. Of course in my mail to him i explained which was the
reason for me to ask, pointing to the french translation since it was the
first one i noticed that had a different layout.

Fabio

-- 
Our mission: make IPv6 the default IP protocol
"We are on a mission from God" - Elwood Blues

http://www.itojun.org/paper/itojun-nanog-200210-ipv6isp/mgp4.html

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Fabio Massimo Di Nitto]

On Tue, 20 May 2003, Denis Barbier wrote:

> > i believe that it looks nicer keeping the layout coherent across
> > translation.
>
> But you do not explain why!

because it looks nicer and it is coherent with the original one. This was
always what i told along the thread. I tought it was clear ;)

> Translations are not displayed together with original text, so imposing
> a similar layout (I keep this term for simplicity even if I find it
> meaningless) does not make sense.

it will still be coherent. Even if i don't know the other language and i
see my description bumping from 10 lines to 100 i might suspect that
something is wrong. (exagerated example of course that will ring a bell in
my head).

>
> > > How do developers check how translations are rendered?
> >
> > sorry but i don't understand what you mean.
> [...]
>
> I am wondering how you checked that the Japanese translation did fit
> your aesthetic criterion.

Of course it is not possible to know everything about everything but
atleast one can try his/her best.

Fabio

-- 
Our mission: make IPv6 the default IP protocol
"We are on a mission from God" - Elwood Blues

http://www.itojun.org/paper/itojun-nanog-200210-ipv6isp/mgp4.html

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Gustavo Noronha Silva]

Em 18 May 2003 18:06:40 +0200, Tollef Fog Heen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> escreveu:

> * Henrique de Moraes Holschuh 
> 
> | On Sat, 17 May 2003, Martin Schulze wrote:
> |
> | > should always try to stay as close to the original as you can.
> | > Changing the text layout is a NO-GO in my opinion - and in the
> | > opinion of our Apache people apparently.
> | 
> | Apparently. We are trying to bring to light that proper l10n
> | requires more than that.
> 
> We asked why the removal of the number «3» from the word «PHP3» caused
> the format of the whole description to the changed.  We asked _why_,
> we did not say «do not do this».  First, we wanted to know why.  Then,
> we might want to ask it to be changed back.
> 
> Somehow, this whole discussion has been blown completely out of
> propositions.

I think this's been answered a lot of times, and Fabiano is not
really asking why, he's telling us 'do not do this'.

Here's my personal answer to what I would have done that:

Let's say a translator in our team thought he should not modify the
layout although it is clearly not good for my language. Then I got
a bug report about that, and went to check it out. Or, simply,
I got a message from the translator asking me to update that translation.

I then discover the layout is really screwed up for my locale and
modify it, after removing the '3' from the translation.

So what's the deal? Can we l10n our files or we should not?

[]s!

-- 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]: Gustavo Noronha 
Debian:   *  
Dúvidas sobre o Debian? Visite o Rau-Tu: http://rautu.cipsga.org.br

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Denis Barbier]

On Mon, May 19, 2003 at 07:21:51AM +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
> On Sun, 18 May 2003, Denis Barbier wrote:
> 
> > [All Cc's removed]
> >
> > On Sat, May 17, 2003 at 07:54:55AM +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
> > [...]
> > > I don't believe that there is not an estestic layout that can satisfy
> > > all the languages we have in Debian.
> >
> > What is the rationale for having a single layout for all languages?
> 
> since we are talking about estetic,

IMO it is more a readability issue.  We French speaking people are not
used to these very long sentences, so we find them harder to parse.

Here is another example taken from debconf templates, see:
  
http://ftp-master.debian.org/~barbier/l10n/material/templates/unstable/main/w/wdm/wdm_1.22.1-2_debian_wdm.templates.fr.gz
In French, parenthesis are put around parts of sentences, not whole sentences.
So the last French paragraph has to be rewritten to remove these parenthesis.
I do not know whether English text is right or not, so I won't file a bug
against original, but will fix the French translation.

> i believe that it looks nicer keeping the layout coherent across
> translation.

But you do not explain why!  Translations are not displayed together
with original text, so imposing a similar layout (I keep this term
for simplicity even if I find it meaningless) does not make sense.

> > How do developers check how translations are rendered?
> 
> sorry but i don't understand what you mean.
[...]

I am wondering how you checked that the Japanese translation did fit
your aesthetic criterion.

Denis

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Fabio Massimo Di Nitto]

On Sun, 18 May 2003, Denis Barbier wrote:

> [All Cc's removed]
>
> On Sat, May 17, 2003 at 07:54:55AM +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
> [...]
> > I don't believe that there is not an estestic layout that can satisfy
> > all the languages we have in Debian.
>
> What is the rationale for having a single layout for all languages?

since we are talking about estetic, i believe that it looks nicer keeping
the layout coherent across translation.

> How do developers check how translations are rendered?

sorry but i don't understand what you mean.

> > Don't forget that most of the text we use in descriptions (or
> > templates, or whatever) are based on technical language and terms,
> > imho most of them farly new i would say and only recently adopted by
> > common languages.
>
> Could you please be more explicit?  I do not understand how this sentence
> is related to the issue discussed here.

I will make a couple of example so we can understand each other better but
they are just examples that i don't mind to discuss, but out of the
mailing list since it will become too much off-topic imho.

When you translate old literature, for instance, it is extremely difficult
since you have to stick to tons of rules (ancient and new ones) and
probably you will have to use some obsolete terms in your language that
correspond to the same one in the other. In a case like this you need to
apply atleast 3 grammatic rule sets. the old one in the other language,
the old one in your language and the new one in your langauge, and if you
don't do that in a really pedantic way you will loose everything of the
meaning of the original text.

Now evaluate computer related terms. They are not older than 20 years,
only some of them have been accepted in common languages (read
dictionaries), and in most cases we inveted new terms that will probably
never flow in laguages other than computer ones. Think to something like:
"I've debianized X4.3! ;-)" (an exagerate example but just to get the
idea) in italian i would translate in something like: "Ho debianizato
X4.3! ;-)". The verb "to debianize" doesn't exist in any dictionary other
than the "Debian one" but somehow we imported it and adapted to out
language. Keeping the same meaning and a very close layout. Point is that
this is a shorcut to a more long and possibly boring translation that will
look like: "Io ho creato un pacchetto Debian che contiene i binari di
X4.3"  (exagerated a bit in the other way but still just to get the idea).
Somehow the language evolves and since computer related language is farly
new i don't see any problem in adapting it a bit for our targets. Of
course you might argue that is not clean but afaik noone has ever really
set rules for cases like this one.

The point is that using a farly new language gives us a bit more freedom
than using a normal language in a strict way. Can you see my point?

Fabio

-- 
Our mission: make IPv6 the default IP protocol
"We are on a mission from God" - Elwood Blues

http://www.itojun.org/paper/itojun-nanog-200210-ipv6isp/mgp4.html

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Sun, 18 May 2003, Tollef Fog Heen wrote:
> * Henrique de Moraes Holschuh 
> | On Sat, 17 May 2003, Martin Schulze wrote:
> | > should always try to stay as close to the original as you can.
> | > Changing the text layout is a NO-GO in my opinion - and in the
> | > opinion of our Apache people apparently.
> | 
> | Apparently. We are trying to bring to light that proper l10n
> | requires more than that.
> 
> We asked why the removal of the number «3» from the word «PHP3» caused
> the format of the whole description to the changed.  We asked _why_,
> we did not say «do not do this».  First, we wanted to know why.  Then,
> we might want to ask it to be changed back.
> 
> Somehow, this whole discussion has been blown completely out of
> propositions.

Maybe. But as you see, Tollef, the fact that l10n includes far more than
simple translations ISN'T common knowlege... :)

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Denis Barbier]

[All Cc's removed]

On Sat, May 17, 2003 at 07:54:55AM +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
[...]
> I don't believe that there is not an estestic layout that can satisfy
> all the languages we have in Debian.

What is the rationale for having a single layout for all languages?
How do developers check how translations are rendered?

> Don't forget that most of the text we use in descriptions (or
> templates, or whatever) are based on technical language and terms,
> imho most of them farly new i would say and only recently adopted by
> common languages.

Could you please be more explicit?  I do not understand how this sentence
is related to the issue discussed here.

Denis

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Tollef Fog Heen]

* Henrique de Moraes Holschuh 

| On Sat, 17 May 2003, Martin Schulze wrote:
|
| > should always try to stay as close to the original as you can.
| > Changing the text layout is a NO-GO in my opinion - and in the
| > opinion of our Apache people apparently.
| 
| Apparently. We are trying to bring to light that proper l10n
| requires more than that.

We asked why the removal of the number «3» from the word «PHP3» caused
the format of the whole description to the changed.  We asked _why_,
we did not say «do not do this».  First, we wanted to know why.  Then,
we might want to ask it to be changed back.

Somehow, this whole discussion has been blown completely out of
propositions.

-- 
Tollef Fog Heen,''`.
UNIX is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are  : :' :
  `. `' 
`-  

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Gustavo Noronha Silva]

Em Sat, 17 May 2003 07:54:55 +0200 (CEST), Fabio Massimo Di Nitto
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> escreveu:

> > Then you ask people to submit bugs to change the original description.
> 
> Yes because if they believe that a better layout should be in place i
> don't see anything wrong in filing a wishlist bug. I would do the same if
> i feel that a description is not readable or can be improved.

Let's clear this out. I do completely agree with you that there should
be clear conversation between maintainer and translator. Both are important
in the process of reaching the Universal goal.

I would agree on setting a policy saying that translators must file wishlist
bugs to present the maintainer their reasons for a future layout change.
I do not agree to binding any typographical stuff to the original with
no appeal. I think we should be rational here, different languages do have
different needs.

So I suggest we: set a policy defining that layout changes are acceptable
but must be taken to the maintainer's review and, if maintainer desagrees
with translator, the discussion should be taken to an appropriate
i18n-tech-ctte forum (that could even be debian-devel, as we have lots
of people speaking lots of different languages here).

> that can satisfy all the languages we have in Debian. Don't forget that
> most of the text we use in descriptions (or templates, or whatever) are
> based on technical language and terms, imho most of them farly new i would
> say and only recently adopted by common languages.

Sure, but that does not mean the typographical rules/recommendations for
each languages should not apply.

Thanks,

[]s!

-- 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]: Gustavo Noronha 
Debian:   *  
Dúvidas sobre o Debian? Visite o Rau-Tu: http://rautu.cipsga.org.br

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Sat, 17 May 2003, Martin Schulze wrote:
> Please keep in mind that a translation is a translation and not a
> redesign or reformat.  When translating documents and strings, you

True. But the Debian translators are trying to l10n Debian, not to translate
it.  And l10n *includes* redesign, reformat, and just about everything the
i18n structure of the program/documentation/system allows one to do in order
to make it stick to *all* the conventions of a locale.  And the better the
i18n structure, the MORE you can change when doing l10n.

And those conventions DO include layout, style, grammar... not just
language.

> should always try to stay as close to the original as you can.  Changing
> the text layout is a NO-GO in my opinion - and in the opinion of our
> Apache people apparently.

Apparently. We are trying to bring to light that proper l10n requires more
than that.

Oh, obviously this requires that the DDTP data makes it to inside the deb,
and that maintainers have a "update-from-ddtp" tool that fetches all l10n
data in there, updates it for all locales (this DOES include adding new
ones, and trashing deprecated ones).  That way, the maintainer can (as often
as he has time to do so) get the full view of his package in all locales.

Users would still get the up-to-date data from the DDTP (if they wish so),
or the one in the package (especially for stable releases), at their choice.

When contention arrises, we talk it out such as what is being done for the
apache case.

Is it different from what we do now? Certainly.  Is it better? Well, IMHO it
is MUCH better if we indeed are trying to make Debian universal.  Will it
work?  I am not sure, but I am willing to try.  Too bad I don't have time to
code the tools.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Martin Schulze]

Denis Barbier wrote:
> > | Description: Versatile, high-performance HTTP server
> > |  The most popular server in the world, Apache features a modular
> > |  design and supports dynamic selection of extension modules at runtime.
> > |  Some of its strong points are its range of possible customization,
> > |  dynamic adjustment of the number of server processes, and a whole   
> > |  range of available modules including many authentication mechanisms,
> > |  server-parsed HTML, server-side includes, access control, CERN httpd
> > |  metafiles emulation, proxy caching, etc.  Apache also supports multiple
> > |  virtual homing.
> > |  .
> > |  Separate Debian packages are available for PHP, mod_perl, Java
> > |  Servlet support, Apache-SSL, and other common extensions.  More
> > |  information is available at http://www.apache.org/.
> 
> [Fake French translation in ASCII]
> 
> > | Description-fr: Serveur HTTP polyvalent haute performance
> > |  Serveur le plus populaire du monde, Apache est caracterise par sa 
> > conception
> > |  modulaire et autorise la selection dynamique des modules d'extension 
> > lors de
> > |  l'execution.
> > |  Quelques-uns de ses points forts sont l'etendue des personnalisations
> > |  possibles, l'ajustement dynamique du nombre de processus du serveur, un
> > |  eventail complet de modules disponibles, incluant :
> > |- plusieurs mecanismes d'authentification ;
> > |- des analyseurs de serveurs de HTML ;
> > |- des inclusions cote serveur ;
> > |- un controle d'acces ;
> > |- une emulation de metafichiers httpd CERN ;
> > |- un cache proxy, etc.
> > |  Apache supporte aussi les sites internes virtuels multiples.
> > |  .
> > |  Des paquets Debian separes sont disponibles pour le PHP, mod_perl, le
> > |  support Servlet Java, Apache-SSL et d'autres extensions habituelles. Plus
> > |  d'informations sont disponibles sur http://www.apache.org/.
> 
> Apache maintainers do not like this translation because the French
> translator changed the layout they chose for their description.
> There is a comma separated list of items in English, and an itemized
> list in French.

Please keep in mind that a translation is a translation and not a
redesign or reformat.  When translating documents and strings, you
should always try to stay as close to the original as you can.  Changing
the text layout is a NO-GO in my opinion - and in the opinion of our
Apache people apparently.

Regards,

Joey

-- 
Let's call it an accidental feature.  -- Larry Wall

Please always Cc to me when replying to me on the lists.

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Fabio Massimo Di Nitto]

On Sat, 17 May 2003, Gustavo Noronha Silva wrote:

> Em Fri, 16 May 2003 06:55:04 +0200 (CEST), Fabio Massimo Di Nitto
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> escreveu:
>
> > > Why do you bother with the layout of the translation? The translators are
> > > the authorities when it comes to their languages. I think we should not
> > > be put in a jail and be unable to decide how we think our users should
> > > see the message.
> > >
> > > Let's make it clear: we translate stuff to make it more readable to
> > > our fellow compatriots, making the translation look bad to our users
> > > does not help achieving the goal.
> >
> > All this other stuff already found several answers in the thread. No need
> > to reanswer them again and restart from scratch.
>
> You say that as if your answers were the Universal Truth.

It is exactly the otherway around. The question you made have been
discussed and evaluated by different people and found several answers from
different point of views. How can this match with your statement?
Mine was done simply to avoid to discuss again from 0 the same things we
went trough in the thread.

> I don't think anyone needs answers here, we need solution to a problem.

Yes we agree 100% on this.

> Our problem is: there's nothing wrong with the english description.
> French people have different typographical rules, so the layout is not
> approppriate for french.

Actually, what they stated to be a "must" has become during the time a
"preferred" way to write the same text.

> Then you ask people to submit bugs to change the original description.

Yes because if they believe that a better layout should be in place i
don't see anything wrong in filing a wishlist bug. I would do the same if
i feel that a description is not readable or can be improved.

> We have to understand we cannot simply put everyone's culture in a
> single template, because they actualy *are* different.

I didn't ask anyone to change their culture (read as: changing senteces
inside the translation or some words instead of others).

> And that's good.

Never doubt that.

> So the french people ask you through a bug report to modify the original
> description and you ask everybody to standardize, but (let's supose) the
> new layout is really bad for the korean readers. Are you going to ask
> them to file a new bug report asking to change the original description
> so you can make a standard world?

Before placing a new layout to satisfy a wishlist bug i would atleast
spend a mail to see if translators can generally agree on that, specially
after this flamewar. I don't believe that there is not an estestic layout
that can satisfy all the languages we have in Debian. Don't forget that
most of the text we use in descriptions (or templates, or whatever) are
based on technical language and terms, imho most of them farly new i would
say and only recently adopted by common languages.

Fabio

-- 
Our mission: make IPv6 the default IP protocol
"We are on a mission from God" - Elwood Blues

http://www.itojun.org/paper/itojun-nanog-200210-ipv6isp/mgp4.html

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Gustavo Noronha Silva]

Em Fri, 16 May 2003 06:55:04 +0200 (CEST), Fabio Massimo Di Nitto
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> escreveu:

> > Why do you bother with the layout of the translation? The translators are
> > the authorities when it comes to their languages. I think we should not
> > be put in a jail and be unable to decide how we think our users should
> > see the message.
> >
> > Let's make it clear: we translate stuff to make it more readable to
> > our fellow compatriots, making the translation look bad to our users
> > does not help achieving the goal.
> 
> All this other stuff already found several answers in the thread. No need
> to reanswer them again and restart from scratch.

You say that as if your answers were the Universal Truth. I don't think
anyone needs answers here, we need solution to a problem. Our problem
is: there's nothing wrong with the english description. French people have
different typographical rules, so the layout is not approppriate for french.

Then you ask people to submit bugs to change the original description.
We have to understand we cannot simply put everyone's culture in a single
template, because they actualy *are* different. And that's good. So the
french people ask you through a bug report to modify the original description
and you ask everybody to standardize, but (let's supose) the new layout is
really bad for the korean readers. Are you going to ask them to file
a new bug report asking to change the original description so you can
make a standard world?

Are we trying to create an universal operating system or to eliminate
the differences between our peoples?

[]s!

-- 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]: Gustavo Noronha 
Debian:   *  
Dúvidas sobre o Debian? Visite o Rau-Tu: http://rautu.cipsga.org.br

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Adam Majer]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 01:31:59AM +0200, Denis Barbier wrote:
> 
> Unfortunately 0xa0 is the no-break space which is very common in
> French typography.  One could argue that Tollef was not aware of this
> fact, but the question is: why does he believe that he can change this
> localized file when he obviously does not master this language?

[snip]

> In short, do not modify PO files unless gettext reports some warnings.
> Only apply your changes to English text, and translators will take
> care of propagating these changes.

I completely agree with you. And frankly, we need more "english" -> English
translators. ;)

- Adam

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Fabio Massimo Di Nitto]

On Thu, 15 May 2003, Gustavo Noronha Silva wrote:

> Em Tue, 13 May 2003 06:57:45 +0200 (CEST), Fabio Massimo Di Nitto
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> escreveu:
>
> > > Now Apache maintainers are telling us that they chose another layout
> > > and we are bound to it.
> >
> > Yes because the official maintainer is responsable for the description of
> > a package. Including the layout and this was told already in the same
> > message above.
>
> This is the same as telling me I should translate 'yellow submarine' to
> 'amarelo submarino', when the right thing in pt_BR is 'submarino amarelo'.

Not at all. None of us did ask them to change sentences or words used for
the translation.

> Why do you bother with the layout of the translation? The translators are
> the authorities when it comes to their languages. I think we should not
> be put in a jail and be unable to decide how we think our users should
> see the message.
>
> Let's make it clear: we translate stuff to make it more readable to
> our fellow compatriots, making the translation look bad to our users
> does not help achieving the goal.

All this other stuff already found several answers in the thread. No need
to reanswer them again and restart from scratch.

Thanks
Fabio

-- 
Our mission: make IPv6 the default IP protocol
"We are on a mission from God" - Elwood Blues

http://www.itojun.org/paper/itojun-nanog-200210-ipv6isp/mgp4.html

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Gustavo Noronha Silva]

Em Tue, 13 May 2003 06:57:45 +0200 (CEST), Fabio Massimo Di Nitto
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> escreveu:

> > Now Apache maintainers are telling us that they chose another layout
> > and we are bound to it.
> 
> Yes because the official maintainer is responsable for the description of
> a package. Including the layout and this was told already in the same
> message above.

This is the same as telling me I should translate 'yellow submarine' to
'amarelo submarino', when the right thing in pt_BR is 'submarino amarelo'.

Why do you bother with the layout of the translation? The translators are
the authorities when it comes to their languages. I think we should not
be put in a jail and be unable to decide how we think our users should
see the message.

Let's make it clear: we translate stuff to make it more readable to
our fellow compatriots, making the translation look bad to our users
does not help achieving the goal.

[]s!

-- 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]: Gustavo Noronha 
Debian:   *  
Dúvidas sobre o Debian? Visite o Rau-Tu: http://rautu.cipsga.org.br

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Denis Barbier]

On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 08:27:02AM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
[...]
> P.S.  To the extent that the DDTP gives the package maintainer veto
> rights, it seems pretty clear that at least initially the DDTP
> believed that the package maintainer was ultimately responsible.
> Given comments and the tenor of the tone made by some of the people on
> some of the language teams, it's not clear they believe that as
> strongly today.

AFAICT DDTP people are not involved in this discussion.

Denis

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Denis Barbier]

On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 08:27:02AM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 12:07:29PM +0200, Martin Quinson wrote:
> >
> > Your engagement for the quality of your package is really great. Only, I
> > think that you are not responsible of the translation. I know that there is
> > a lack in debian framework concerning this point, but it really should be so
> > ('cause maintainer cannot be responsible for translations they do not
> > understand. How do you handle tranlations in russian, japaneese and
> > bokmal?).
> 
> This is a fundamental question for which there definitely isn't
> consensus, and it is a fundamental polity (governance) issue.
> 
> One is that the linguistic teams have full and ultimate responsibility
> over the translations, and there is no recourse or appeal if the
> maintainer doesn't like what they have done.   
> 
> Another position is that the maintainer is ultimately responsible; he
> or she may delegate responsibility to helpers, just as the Debian
> Leader may delegate certain responsibilities to subordinates.
> However, it is clear that the maintainer or the Debian Leader is
> ultimately responsible, even if the wise maintainer and/or Debian
> Leader may not choose to exercise his or her perogatives very often.

As far as Debian packages are concerned, the latter undoubtedly applies.
But having full control does not mean randomly breaking translations
or imposing inappropriate rules; maintainers should not perform any
changes in l10n files unless they *really* know what they do.  And
in such a case they should notify the translator to give him a choice
to argue if he disagrees, otherwise he could miss the changes.

Denis

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Martin Quinson]

[I only speak for myself, and not for the french translation team neither
for the ddtp, in which I'm not involved at all. Please flame *me* for what I
say]

On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 08:27:02AM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 12:07:29PM +0200, Martin Quinson wrote:
> >
> > Your engagement for the quality of your package is really great. Only, I
> > think that you are not responsible of the translation. I know that there is
> > a lack in debian framework concerning this point, but it really should be so
> > ('cause maintainer cannot be responsible for translations they do not
> > understand. How do you handle tranlations in russian, japaneese and
> > bokmal?).
> 
> This is a fundamental question for which there definitely isn't
> consensus, and it is a fundamental polity (governance) issue.
> 
> One is that the linguistic teams have full and ultimate responsibility
> over the translations, and there is no recourse or appeal if the
> maintainer doesn't like what they have done.   
> 
> Another position is that the maintainer is ultimately responsible; he
> or she may delegate responsibility to helpers, just as the Debian
> Leader may delegate certain responsibilities to subordinates.
> However, it is clear that the maintainer or the Debian Leader is
> ultimately responsible, even if the wise maintainer and/or Debian
> Leader may not choose to exercise his or her perogatives very often.
> 
> This point is a subtle one.  I will point out that in a corporate
> setting, it's quite normal for the employer's manager and or his
> manager's manager will not fully understand all of the work that that
> the employee does.  Yet they are still responsible for the work of the
> employee, and if they don't like it, they can tell the employee to do
> things a different way, or in the extreme case, they can fire him.
> 
> Obviously, if the manager doesn't completely understand what the
> employee is doing, there will be a certain negotiation, and a certain
> back and forth over goals and directions and what is and isn't
> technically possible, etc.  Hopefully, said negotiations will be done
> in a mutally respectful and civil manner.  But that doesn't change the
> fact that ultimately the manager gets to have the final say.
> 
> Which model people subscribe to makes a lot of difference in how they
> communicate.  For example, if your manager doesn't like the work that you
> do, even if you think his grounds for objecting may not be the best
> ones, would you tell him, "tough luck"?   Probably not
> 
>   - Ted
> 
> P.S.  To the extent that the DDTP gives the package maintainer veto
> rights, it seems pretty clear that at least initially the DDTP
> believed that the package maintainer was ultimately responsible.
> Given comments and the tenor of the tone made by some of the people on
> some of the language teams, it's not clear they believe that as
> strongly today.

Please keep in mind that I have nothing to do with the DDTP. My advice is
personal.

I completely agree with you on several points, like the fact that there is
no special reason in the constitution or in policy or in BCP or in any
official Debian writting to say that the maintainer is not responsible for
the content of the translations.

I only meant that it's rather illogical to ask to maintainer to review texts
in languages he/she don't understand. I know that this issue is related to
what can be found for porting to architectures the maintainer does not know,
but still, there is some quite fundamental differences here. 

Thanks to the wonderfull dbuild architecture, it is very easy to know if
there *is* a problem on a given architecture, and what the right solution
is (apply patches as long as dbuild repports an error). 

This is not true for translations, since no mecanical validation is enough.
Even if a text is ispell-clean, there might be a ton of gramatical error,
typographical ones and even badly constructed sentences which do not "sound
well". 

Moreover, languages are sometimes difficult even for native speaker. French
is a rather good example of this complexity, and explains why we cam up with
so complicated reviewing processes within our team: webpages are posted at
least three time to the ML, in [ITT] mails for 'intend to translate', [DDR]
for 'ask for review', and [RELU] for 'reviewed, ready to be commited'
emails ; the DDTP integrate a reviewing process where all description have to
be accepted by 3 other translators before being declared as usable by the
end user.

So, if we need so much work to find a good translation when all involved
people are native french speaker, how can you explain that maintainers can
'detect errors in our work' (like the use of the non breaking space ASCII
code to follow our typographical rules), and corrupt our work so easily?

Please note that this discussion, like most of the previous ones on this
topic, is moving from a very simple problem (maintain

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Christian Couder]

On Wednesday 14 May 2003 14:27, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 12:07:29PM +0200, Martin Quinson wrote:
> > Your engagement for the quality of your package is really great. Only, I
> > think that you are not responsible of the translation. I know that there
> > is a lack in debian framework concerning this point, but it really should
> > be so ('cause maintainer cannot be responsible for translations they do
> > not understand. How do you handle tranlations in russian, japaneese and
> > bokmal?).
>
> This is a fundamental question for which there definitely isn't
> consensus, and it is a fundamental polity (governance) issue.

Yes, it is also linked with the problem of Translators' status in Debian.

The Constitution says :

"Developers are volunteers who agree to further the aims of the Project 
insofar as they participate in it, and who maintain package(s) for the 
Project or do other work which the Project Leader's Delegate(s) consider 
worthwhile."

So if a Delegate consider Translators' work worthwile or if Translators 
maintain packages, they should be given the Developer status (if they follow 
the same kind of new maintainer process of course) and then be responsible 
for their work as well as Developers.

> One is that the linguistic teams have full and ultimate responsibility
> over the translations, and there is no recourse or appeal if the
> maintainer doesn't like what they have done.

There can be some recourse or appeal (to some committee or to the Project 
Leader) and the translator teams still maintain full and ultimate 
responsibility as well as Developers do. Don't give us false alternatives.

> Another position is that the maintainer is ultimately responsible; he
> or she may delegate responsibility to helpers, just as the Debian
> Leader may delegate certain responsibilities to subordinates.

This would clearly create 2 class of citizens within Debian or at least 
another hierachical level.

I wont go further discussing your message. The problem exists and has been 
ignored for a (too) long time. And my preference is clear.

Regards anyway,
Christian Couder (translator of Debian web pages since 1999 and still not 
Developer, so with no vote).

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Matthias Urlichs]

Hi, Martin Quinson wrote:

> It must be so in French.

Sorry for being pedantic, but "must" is an overly strong word here.

You may have valid reasons for not using a comma-separated list here, but
French grammar certainly allows comma-separated enumerations if one so
desires. (Spoken language, for instance, if nothing else.)

They may be bad style (see my other email on that), but they're not
actually _forbidden_ by anybody.

-- 
Matthias Urlichs  | {M:U} IT Consulting @ m-u-it.de  |  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Disclaimer: The quote was selected randomly. Really. | http://smurf.noris.de
-- 
A paranoid is a man who knows a little of what's going on.
-- William S. Burroughs

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Matthias Urlichs]

Hi, Theodore Ts'o wrote:

> To the extent that the DDTP gives the package maintainer veto rights, it
> seems pretty clear that at least initially the DDTP believed that the
> package maintainer was ultimately responsible.

It's the maintainer's name and signature on the package, after all.

On the other hand, the maintainer has to be able to trust their
translators. They're presumably doing it for the good of Debian and not
because they want to push their own agendas by subverting translations.

To get back to the case which triggered all this (reformatting a
comma-separated enumeration into a list), IMHO there is a perfectly valid
reason to do that -- Engllish-language text typically is shorter than the
equivalent in other languages, and French (with its tendency not to use
any nice short English-language words if it can possibly be helped) is no
exception.

Thus, what might be a nicely concise list of package attributes turns into
an unwieldy mess when translated to French or German.  :-/

-- 
Matthias Urlichs  | {M:U} IT Consulting @ m-u-it.de  |  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Disclaimer: The quote was selected randomly. Really. | http://smurf.noris.de
-- 
Someone on IRC was very sad about the uptime of his machine wrapping
from 497 days to 0.
-- linux-kernel

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 12:07:29PM +0200, Martin Quinson wrote:
>
> Your engagement for the quality of your package is really great. Only, I
> think that you are not responsible of the translation. I know that there is
> a lack in debian framework concerning this point, but it really should be so
> ('cause maintainer cannot be responsible for translations they do not
> understand. How do you handle tranlations in russian, japaneese and
> bokmal?).

This is a fundamental question for which there definitely isn't
consensus, and it is a fundamental polity (governance) issue.

One is that the linguistic teams have full and ultimate responsibility
over the translations, and there is no recourse or appeal if the
maintainer doesn't like what they have done.   

Another position is that the maintainer is ultimately responsible; he
or she may delegate responsibility to helpers, just as the Debian
Leader may delegate certain responsibilities to subordinates.
However, it is clear that the maintainer or the Debian Leader is
ultimately responsible, even if the wise maintainer and/or Debian
Leader may not choose to exercise his or her perogatives very often.

This point is a subtle one.  I will point out that in a corporate
setting, it's quite normal for the employer's manager and or his
manager's manager will not fully understand all of the work that that
the employee does.  Yet they are still responsible for the work of the
employee, and if they don't like it, they can tell the employee to do
things a different way, or in the extreme case, they can fire him.

Obviously, if the manager doesn't completely understand what the
employee is doing, there will be a certain negotiation, and a certain
back and forth over goals and directions and what is and isn't
technically possible, etc.  Hopefully, said negotiations will be done
in a mutally respectful and civil manner.  But that doesn't change the
fact that ultimately the manager gets to have the final say.

Which model people subscribe to makes a lot of difference in how they
communicate.  For example, if your manager doesn't like the work that you
do, even if you think his grounds for objecting may not be the best
ones, would you tell him, "tough luck"?   Probably not

- Ted

P.S.  To the extent that the DDTP gives the package maintainer veto
rights, it seems pretty clear that at least initially the DDTP
believed that the package maintainer was ultimately responsible.
Given comments and the tenor of the tone made by some of the people on
some of the language teams, it's not clear they believe that as
strongly today.

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Bill Allombert]

On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 08:40:17AM +0200, Denis Barbier wrote:
> > > > Telling them 'you do not speak french, so don't try to understand' is
> > > > not acceptable.
> > > 
> > > Sure it is.  If they believe that the translator is wrong, they can
> > > ask a trusted person of their own to review the translation.
> > 
> > I have done that several time myself. The result was several time that
> > the ddtp translation were sheer nonsense. I am sorry. So I have used
> > my veto right to uploaded meaningful translation.  Trust is not given
> > for free, one need to deserve it.
> 
> I guess that you did it for French translations.  Do you imagine

You guess wrong. I meant I have asked a trusted person (who was a
developer of the upstream project and was a native speaker) about the
translation. He tell me the translation was nonsense and provided me
with a correct one and was reviewed by other upstream developers.

Cheers,
-- 
Bill. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Imagine a large red swirl here. 

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Martin Quinson]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 12:57:51PM +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
> On Tue, 13 May 2003, Martin Quinson wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 09:42:16AM +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
> > >
> > > If you really believe that the apache description should be improved than
> > > you file a bug against apache asking to changing layout, proposing the
> > > better one so that everyone can be alligned to it.
> >
> > If I understand well, you are bored because you think that the layout used
> > in french could be good in all languages, but the french translators sort of
> > kept it for themselves.
> 
> No, I am not bored. People in some msgs wrote that the french layout is
> better. I am not against the fact that it can be better. Just use the
> right way so that everyone can benefit in a similar way.

But you missed our point saying that we don't want to use it in french
because it looks better, but because we have to. The fact that it looks
better and could be used in the other languages as well is another point,
and nobody in the french team never commented on that.

Again, in french, that's not just esthetical. And we, as french translators,
let you the decision about the esthetic of the thing for the other languages.

> I don't want to prevent you to use your language like i wouldn't like the
> otherw ay around. Is there any way to be closer to the original esthetical
> layout?

Nop. It must be so in French. The previous translation was an obvious error.

And I'm not the right person to decide if it's better looking in other
languages since I'm only native french speaker.



Your engagement for the quality of your package is really great. Only, I
think that you are not responsible of the translation. I know that there is
a lack in debian framework concerning this point, but it really should be so
('cause maintainer cannot be responsible for translations they do not
understand. How do you handle tranlations in russian, japaneese and
bokmal?).

Correcting this lack is a completely other topic, too large to be discussed
here (browse debian-i18n archives if you really care).

As long as this lack isn't corrected, feel free to mark all bugs
concerning the french translation as "forwarded to upstream", and forward it
to our mailing list. We will take care of them and help you to correct them.

Bye, Mt.

-- 
Learning and doing is the true spirit of free software -- learning without
doing gets you academic sterility, and doing without learning is all too
often the way things are done in proprietary software.
  -- Raph Levien 

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Tollef Fog Heen]

*  (Denis Barbier)

| I sent a templates.fr file for cvs in #136340, which has been included
| in 1.11.1p1debian-4.  I do not know if this file was included verbatim,
| but 1.11.1p1debian-8 did not contain any 0xa0 characters (in ISO-8859-1
| encoding) which were replaced by normal spaces.  Now Tollef is telling
| me that those characters should never have been put into templates.fr,
| and removing them was right.

The mail sent to me from the BTS did _not_ include any 0xa0 characters
at all, and according to my .zsh_history, I did not wget the file off
the web, but rather copy&pasted the template from the mail.  (The mail
has charset: iso8859-1, so copy&pasting does not give me any charset
issues as warned in the mail).

I was confusing the template with the issue in 142665.

-- 
Tollef Fog Heen,''`.
UNIX is user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are  : :' :
  `. `' 
`-  

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 12:25:24PM +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
> > The translation team. Any other scheme is flawed and tends to problems
> > (people doing the same work will collide, it has happened in the past with
> > translations and will happen in the future if the maintainer, and not the
> > translation teams ,is still the one merging changes)
> 
> The translation team will not get anything from BTS anyway... so i don't
> see how this can work. the DD will be always the interface in this case.
> user -> BTS -> DD -> translation team

That's why might need a 'translation' tag so that translation teams can 
subscribe to the PTS for packages they translate and receive the 
'translation' bugs directly.

Currently, however, the DD does not always have to be the interface, that's 
what the PTS is for.
user -> BTS -> DD
|
.-> translation team

But having a 'translation' tag makes it easier to handle.

> > > That's why i was asking information to grisu in the beginning for which is
> > > the proper procedure. Only a nice flamewar was born out of it.
> >
> > Grisu is _not_ the translation team coordinator for French. Denis is.
> > Grisu manages the DDTP but that does not mean he gets a decision on how a
> > translation should be made.
> 
> I did ask for a procedure. not to solve the problem from us. There is a
> difference.

Then you should have asked in debian-i18n, not to the translation team. In
my opinion things that happened (like people starting to talk in french and
not Cc'ing you) were related to using the translation team address and not
the -i18n one.

> If this was the only point in the entire discussion, sure i can leave it
> out and we can stop discussing here.
> 

It's not the only point, but, as the thread at -l10n-french (and the one at 
-devel) show you think it's a layout issue whileas the french team thinks 
it's a typographical issue.

Friendly,

Javi

PS: My (english) typos are not premeditated, I just type too fast and don't 
red over what I send when time/work is pressing...


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[OT] Storms (Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue))

[Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 08:05:29PM +0100, Mark Brown wrote:
> On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 01:27:45PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> 
> > We have a similar expression in (American) English.  It's a "tempest in
> > a teapot".
> 
> "Storm in a teacup" for British English.

:-)
"Tormenta en un vaso de agua" in Spanish. So it seems that french and 
spanish drink more water than tea.


Javi


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Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Paul Hampson]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 05:56:08PM +0200, Bill Allombert wrote:
> Bonjour,
> 
> I am french and I don't regard the 'Imprimerie Nationale' rules as binding.
> We are still a free country.
> 
> Do we have such standard document for the original english description ?
> No, and there is no dedicated team to review them.

This is not for lack of trying... People keep trying to tie
down the English language with an institution similar to
the one French has (the name of which I can't remember) but
it never sticks. Certain endeavours have English-language
manuals (Journalism, government writing come to mind) but,
as I understand it, there's no authority on English beyond
the Oxford, Webster's and Macquarie (and others I don't know)
Dictionaries for UK, US and Australian English.

On the other hand, what we want in Debian (I presume) is
"standard" {langauge} which is usually fairly easy to agree
upon. It's the most formal subset spoken by the most people,
I suspect. So in French I understand it's the form dictated
by the language institute in Paris who's name I have not
remembered since I started this email. In English I guess
you'd take the Harvard Dictionary of Style combined with
an appropriate dictionary? In Japanese it would be standard
Japanese (that was easy!) which is pretty much polite
Tokyo-speak, thanks to the agressive attempts of previous
Japanese governments to stamp out all other dialects. ;-)

I daresay the style choice for a given language should be
made by the people on the debian-l10n-{language} mailing
list. And the adhered to by writings in that language...
Presumably a webpage listing such documents would be a
good idea.

As a native English and poor Japanese speaker, this
discussion can only really be of academic interest to me
since Japanese's computer-typographical formatting seems
to have been massively influenced by US English, and so
doesn't present any interesting cases (off the top of my
head) to parallel a marked difference in writing quality
between comma-seperated lists and semicolon/newline
seperated lists apparent in French but not in English.

I think in English semicolons and commas also seperate
different things, but I'd have to go back and reread the
apache description before I can comment on which is correct
in English here.

-- 
---
Paul "TBBle" Hampson, MCSE
6th year CompSci/Asian Studies student, ANU
The Boss, Bubblesworth Pty Ltd (ABN: 51 095 284 361)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Of course Pacman didn't influence us as kids. If it did,
we'd be running around in darkened rooms, popping pills and
listening to repetitive music.
 -- Kristian Wilson, Nintendo, Inc, 1989

This email is licensed to the recipient for non-commercial
use, duplication and distribution.
---


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Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Denis Barbier]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 10:36:53PM +0200, Bill Allombert wrote:
> On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 10:04:43PM +0200, Denis Barbier wrote:
> > On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 05:56:08PM +0200, Bill Allombert wrote:
> > > Do we have such standard document for the original english description ?
> > > No, and there is no dedicated team to review them.
> > 
> > debian-l10n-english
> 
> There have been no email send to this list from November 2002 to
> February 2003. Can we call that a team ?  

This list is stalled when no input is sent, but this is certainly not
the fault of those who are kindly reviewing English prose.

[...]
> > > Telling them 'you do not speak french, so don't try to understand' is
> > > not acceptable.
> > 
> > Sure it is.  If they believe that the translator is wrong, they can
> > ask a trusted person of their own to review the translation.
> 
> I have done that several time myself. The result was several time that
> the ddtp translation were sheer nonsense. I am sorry. So I have used
> my veto right to uploaded meaningful translation.  Trust is not given
> for free, one need to deserve it.

I guess that you did it for French translations.  Do you imagine
sending such a message to a Japanese translator:
  My description has a comma separated list but your translation
  does not contain any comma.  Moreover there is no space between
  words which makes your text look ugly.  For these reasons I will
  apply my veto right.
?

Here is what I am talking about: some developers alter translations
for languages they do not understand, which is silly.  If you are not
fluent in a given language, do not try to fix translations, it is
likely that you will make them worse.

[...]
> For example removing trailing dot of the short description from the
> french translation is wrong if the english version has it. The dot must
> first be removed from the english version and then from the translation.
> So notify the maintainer and wait until he upload a fixed version.

Right, but this is not what is discussed here.  English description is not
wrong, so the translator had no reason to send a bugreport.

[...]
> As far as my experience is concerned, people allows themselves to
> translate description of packages they do not understand in english
> instead of giving up  and produce nonsense as translation. This is
> that I would like the reviewers to focus on, not on typographical details.

I agree this is a problem, but I do not know how to prevent these people
from translating.  Telling reviewers to relax grammar rules does not help.
OTOH some French maintainers are unable to write plain French but
translate their material, this is also a problem.

Denis

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Nicolas Boullis]

Hi,

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 05:56:08PM +0200, Bill Allombert wrote:
> Bonjour,
> 
> I am french and I don't regard the 'Imprimerie Nationale' rules as binding.
> We are still a free country.
> 
> Do we have such standard document for the original english description ?
> No, and there is no dedicated team to review them.
> 
> I think we should focus on provided accurate description not
> typographically correct one. Keeping things simple so that 
> Debian maintainers can understand what is coming along with the
> translation is important, because they have the final responsibility
> of the package.
> 
> Telling them 'you do not speak french, so don't try to understand' is
> not acceptable. I do speak french and I have often trouble to understand 
> myself. 
> 
> If you have a problem with the original translation, please ask the
> maintainer before doing the translation. We should work with him and
> not against him.

You're probably right, those useless l10n teams are annoying. Anyway, 
translating is easy: let's ask google to translate our texts for us. It 
does not always very high quality results, but who cares if the 
typography and the grammar are not perfect? Anyone is able to 
understand, isn't it?


> Amicalement,

For those who don't understand french, that means "Friendly," and I 
think you're not very friendly with Denis...


Regards,

Nicolas

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Branden Robinson]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 10:36:53PM +0200, Bill Allombert wrote:
> On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 10:04:43PM +0200, Denis Barbier wrote:
> > On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 05:56:08PM +0200, Bill Allombert wrote:
> > > Do we have such standard document for the original english description ?
> > > No, and there is no dedicated team to review them.
> > 
> > debian-l10n-english
> 
> There have been no email send to this list from November 2002 to
> February 2003. Can we call that a team ?  

Why not?  Plenty of skilled English speakers frequent that list.

Maybe the problem is that some Debian developers have an inflated notion
of their facility with English.[1]

[1] Before someone makes a predictable remark, this can be true of
native speakers as well.

-- 
G. Branden Robinson| What influenced me to atheism was
Debian GNU/Linux   | reading the Bible cover to cover.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | Twice.
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- J. Michael Straczynski


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Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Joey Hess]

First of all, it seems to me that the French translation is clearly
correctly formatted, for French. Nice to learn about how list layout
works in French. However --

Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña wrote:
> > > The official maintainer is in _no_ way responsible for the _translated_
> > > description of a package. Please, let translation teams do their work
> > > without interfeering.
> > 
> > When DDTP will be integrate 100% in the system who will receive bugs on
> > descriptions? you or the dd?
> 
> The translation team. Any other scheme is flawed and tends to problems
> (people doing the same work will collide, it has happened in the past with
> translations and will happen in the future if the maintainer, and not the
> translation teams ,is still the one merging changes)

Conversly, I think that as long as the translation teams keep on working
off in their own little corner with no control given to the package
maintainer, the kind of dispute illistrated by this thread will keep
happening, and will become more and more common. This is exactly why I
have and continue to urge the people behind the DDTP to let the
maintainers of packages have oversight over their translations. The
DDTP needs to engage the maintainers of packages, provide them tools
to work with the translations, and stop trying to invent translation
distribution systems that are independant from how the rest of debian
works.

And your concerns about collisions are really nicely addressed already
by any of the several fine revision control systems in Debian, amoung
other methods.

-- 
see shy jo


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Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Bill Allombert]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 10:04:43PM +0200, Denis Barbier wrote:
> On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 05:56:08PM +0200, Bill Allombert wrote:
> > Do we have such standard document for the original english description ?
> > No, and there is no dedicated team to review them.
> 
> debian-l10n-english

There have been no email send to this list from November 2002 to
February 2003. Can we call that a team ?  

> > I think we should focus on provided accurate description not
> > typographically correct one.
> 
> Why not both?

One word: <>. You may have an infinite amount of time to spend on
translation, but not all maintainers. Keeping focus on what is important
save time and patience of everybody.

> > Telling them 'you do not speak french, so don't try to understand' is
> > not acceptable.
> 
> Sure it is.  If they believe that the translator is wrong, they can
> ask a trusted person of their own to review the translation.

I have done that several time myself. The result was several time that
the ddtp translation were sheer nonsense. I am sorry. So I have used
my veto right to uploaded meaningful translation.  Trust is not given
for free, one need to deserve it.

> It is silly that people who do not speak a foreign language can have a
> judgement on what a translation should look like and perform changes
> in localized files (I am not talking about the Apache description
> here) without notifying the translator.

The translator must notify the maintainer, not the converse.

For example removing trailing dot of the short description from the
french translation is wrong if the english version has it. The dot must
first be removed from the english version and then from the translation.
So notify the maintainer and wait until he upload a fixed version.

> > If you have a problem with the original translation,
> > please ask the maintainer before doing the translation. We should work
> > with him and not against him.

Sorry I meant s/you/one/g.

> 'We'?  I am glad to learn that you are going to let us benefit from
> your experience.

'We' as in 'Debian'. But maybe considering ourself as a group would not
sustain your writing aggressivity ?

As far as my experience is concerned, people allows themselves to
translate description of packages they do not understand in english
instead of giving up  and produce nonsense as translation. This is
that I would like the reviewers to focus on, not on typographical details.

Cheers,
-- 
Bill. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

Imagine a large red swirl here. 

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Denis Barbier]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 05:56:08PM +0200, Bill Allombert wrote:
> Bonjour,
> 
> I am french and I don't regard the 'Imprimerie Nationale' rules as binding.
> We are still a free country.
> 
> Do we have such standard document for the original english description ?
> No, and there is no dedicated team to review them.

debian-l10n-english

> I think we should focus on provided accurate description not
> typographically correct one.

Why not both?

> Keeping things simple so that Debian maintainers can understand what
> is coming along with the translation is important, because they have
> the final responsibility of the package.
>
> Telling them 'you do not speak french, so don't try to understand' is
> not acceptable.

Sure it is.  If they believe that the translator is wrong, they can
ask a trusted person of their own to review the translation.
It is silly that people who do not speak a foreign language can have a
judgement on what a translation should look like and perform changes
in localized files (I am not talking about the Apache description
here) without notifying the translator.

> I do speak french and I have often trouble to understand myself. 
> 
> If you have a problem with the original translation,

I have no problem with it, it could and has been improved.

> please ask the maintainer before doing the translation. We should work
> with him and not against him.

'We'?  I am glad to learn that you are going to let us benefit from
your experience.

Denis

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Mark Brown]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 01:27:45PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:

> We have a similar expression in (American) English.  It's a "tempest in
> a teapot".

"Storm in a teacup" for British English.

-- 
"You grabbed my hand and we fell into it, like a daydream - or a fever."


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Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Branden Robinson]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 10:14:33AM +0200, Yannick Roehlly wrote:
> In France,  we have  an expression that  says "a  storm in a  glass of
> water".

We have a similar expression in (American) English.  It's a "tempest in
a teapot".

[1] http://www.quinion.com/words/qa/qa-tem1.htm

-- 
G. Branden Robinson| There's nothing an agnostic can't
Debian GNU/Linux   | do if he doesn't know whether he
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | believes in it or not.
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | -- Graham Chapman


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Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Bill Allombert]

Bonjour,

I am french and I don't regard the 'Imprimerie Nationale' rules as binding.
We are still a free country.

Do we have such standard document for the original english description ?
No, and there is no dedicated team to review them.

I think we should focus on provided accurate description not
typographically correct one. Keeping things simple so that 
Debian maintainers can understand what is coming along with the
translation is important, because they have the final responsibility
of the package.

Telling them 'you do not speak french, so don't try to understand' is
not acceptable. I do speak french and I have often trouble to understand 
myself. 

If you have a problem with the original translation, please ask the
maintainer before doing the translation. We should work with him and
not against him.

Amicalement,
Bill

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Mark Brown]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 12:37:46PM +0200, Martin Quinson wrote:

> If I understand well, you are bored because you think that the layout used
> in french could be good in all languages, but the french translators sort of
> kept it for themselves.

> But we didn't do that because we don't think that the french typographical
> rules should be used in all languages, as well as we think that the english
> typographical rules do not apply in French.

If you're going to do something as substantial as this why not drop the
maintainer an e-mail about it?  Tell them things like what you intend to
do and that while you don't know if it's appropriate for other language
it's needed for yours for whatever reason.  That way maintainers know
what's going so they don't get surprised looking at what you've done and
if the change is something they want to pick up in general then they
can.

> For example, we always put a space before the colon symbol (a non-breaking
> space when technically possible), but we won't repport as an error in the
> original text a colon without space before (as requiered by english
> typographical rules). That's the same kind of thing for us.

Changing from a paragraph of text to a bulleted list is a rather more
substantial change than that - it looks like the text has been
restructured.

-- 
"You grabbed my hand and we fell into it, like a daydream - or a fever."

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Laurent Defours]

Hi !

Apologies are due for the thread in french in which you were not cc'ed.
So impolite as it may seems, though, you adressed to the french
translation team as a whole, and I think every people who jumped in this
thread were willing to adopt a common standpoint on this issue before
you would be given an "official" reply from the french translation team.

I reviewed the apache-ssl description, which is identical to this one.
And I approved the layout change. But I understand your point and partly
agree.

> I do not understand why the previous translation was alligned to our
> layout and noone is still able to give me an answer about this.

Denis told earlier the itemized list is the _preferred_ format for a
long list and that's all there is to it. This is in no way mandatory.
Most people seem to think this format is better for the reader. I do. As
Jean-Philippe noted, there is no grammatical difference between this
format and the comma-separated one. Both are correct, which doesn't mean
both are equally efficient to ease the reading, but I don't like the
"french exception" standing as I am pretty sure that most languages, if
not all, are able to distinguish between itemized lists and inline ones.

So the sort answer is: the layout changed because someone had the idea
to change it and the others thought the new one was better.

> If you really believe that the apache description should be improved than
> you file a bug against apache asking to changing layout, proposing the
> better one so that everyone can be alligned to it.

I totally agree with you on this point. The other languages should
beneficiate from the improvement (we obviously think it's an improvement
since we approved it) and a bug report should have been filed. At least
the maintainer would be aware of it and decide if this is a french-only
issue or if it's relevant for the english (and possibly other) version.

Now the question is: do (or should) the maintainer have authority on the
translations ?

> from the translator point of view you should only translate. That's what i
> do when i submit italian translation. If have a concern about anything
> else i ask the maintainer. prove that I am wrong.

Granted, but "only translate" is much more than just taking each word
and putting an equivalent from the dictionnary. You often have to
organize things differently if you want the translation appear as a
native work to the readers.

> > Generaly speeking, we (people aware of l10n and i18n) believe that the
> > maintainer's job is not to deal with these issues. Translators are
> > bored to fix maintainers mistakes. Moreover, I believe that a maintainer
> > should not loose his time on l10n.
> 
> Yes we do.
> 
> just an examoke:
> 
> http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/ch-best-pkging-practices.en.html#s-bpp-pkg-desc
> 
> "The long description should consist of full and complete sentences."
> 
> I miss to see how a list can fullfil this reference.

Maybe it would help to know why this recommendation is given in the
first place ? Do the itemized list format break anything (nobody seems
to be aware of it) ? Or is it just to avoid having descriptions lazily
written, without verbs and so on ?

The itemized list is still a "full and complete sentence" anyway.

> > The question is Why do you want to have its layout alligned with the
> > others ?
> 
> I could simply ask you the question the other way around: why do you want
> to be different from all the others? but it's a chicken & egg stupid game.
> 
> The reason is simple. The DD decide the layout and the descriptio and it
> is responsable for it again the community and the users, no matter in
> which language. All the others cope with our layout and i don't see any
> language barrier that does not permit you to do so.

The real question is: who is responsible of what ?

The translators should be absolutely responsible of their work, in my
opinion, and bugs concerning translations should go to them, not to the
maintainer. If any team decide not to cope with your layout, it should
be their problem, not yours. And they should be able to manage the
complaints, if any.

Laurent

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Fabio Massimo Di Nitto]

On Tue, 13 May 2003, Martin Quinson wrote:

> On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 09:42:16AM +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
> >
> > If you really believe that the apache description should be improved than
> > you file a bug against apache asking to changing layout, proposing the
> > better one so that everyone can be alligned to it.
>
> If I understand well, you are bored because you think that the layout used
> in french could be good in all languages, but the french translators sort of
> kept it for themselves.

No, I am not bored. People in some msgs wrote that the french layout is
better. I am not against the fact that it can be better. Just use the
right way so that everyone can benefit in a similar way.

>
> But we didn't do that because we don't think that the french typographical
> rules should be used in all languages, as well as we think that the english
> typographical rules do not apply in French.
>
> > > We are performing a lot of reviews to ensure that the quality of the
> > > translation is good. 3 translators were agreed to use this translation.
> >
> > We did not, i will repeat this until the end of the world, discuss the
> > quality of the contents. We are discussing the layout.
>
> No, not exactly. We are not discussing esthetical layout here.

ok, my fault here that i was missing the "esthetical".

> This layout in french is not only esthetical, it must be so because of
> typographical rules[1]. That's why we didn't think that all languages must
> follow the same rules. In written french, the typographical rules have
> almost the same impact than gramatical ones.
>
> But feel free to adapt this new layout to the original text if you want
> to. Only, don't try to prevent us to follow the rules in our language.

I don't want to prevent you to use your language like i wouldn't like the
otherw ay around. Is there any way to be closer to the original esthetical
layout?

feel free to submit a bug report to change it globally ;)

Fabio

-- 
Our mission: make IPv6 the default IP protocol
"We are on a mission from God" - Elwood Blues

http://www.itojun.org/paper/itojun-nanog-200210-ipv6isp/mgp4.html

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Martin Quinson]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 09:42:16AM +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
> 
> If you really believe that the apache description should be improved than
> you file a bug against apache asking to changing layout, proposing the
> better one so that everyone can be alligned to it.

If I understand well, you are bored because you think that the layout used
in french could be good in all languages, but the french translators sort of
kept it for themselves.

But we didn't do that because we don't think that the french typographical
rules should be used in all languages, as well as we think that the english
typographical rules do not apply in French.

> > We are performing a lot of reviews to ensure that the quality of the
> > translation is good. 3 translators were agreed to use this translation.
> 
> We did not, i will repeat this until the end of the world, discuss the
> quality of the contents. We are discussing the layout.

No, not exactly. We are not discussing esthetical layout here.

This layout in french is not only esthetical, it must be so because of
typographical rules[1]. That's why we didn't think that all languages must
follow the same rules. In written french, the typographical rules have
almost the same impact than gramatical ones.

But feel free to adapt this new layout to the original text if you want
to. Only, don't try to prevent us to follow the rules in our language.

For example, we always put a space before the colon symbol (a non-breaking
space when technically possible), but we won't repport as an error in the
original text a colon without space before (as requiered by english
typographical rules). That's the same kind of thing for us.

Bye, Mt.

[1] Lexique des règles typographiques en usage à l'imprimerie nationale,
ISBN: 2743304820. Available at:
http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2743304820/qid%3D1047692993/sr%3D1-4/ref%3Dsr%5F1%5F2%5F4/402-2014446-9559346

-- 
Don't drink as root!

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Fabio Massimo Di Nitto]

On Tue, 13 May 2003, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña wrote:

> I won't discuss that. It probably was not nice switching to other language
> but Denis was, in my point of view, asking the rest of the team (which
> might not be fluent in english)

Let's stop any discussion that is not focused on the origianl question.

> > When DDTP will be integrate 100% in the system who will receive bugs on
> > descriptions? you or the dd?
>
> The translation team. Any other scheme is flawed and tends to problems
> (people doing the same work will collide, it has happened in the past with
> translations and will happen in the future if the maintainer, and not the
> translation teams ,is still the one merging changes)

The translation team will not get anything from BTS anyway... so i don't
see how this can work. the DD will be always the interface in this case.
user -> BTS -> DD -> translation team

> > > First, thanks to Denis work, projects like DDTP are possible. Without his
> > > po-debconf half of the DDTP would be unmanagable. Please take time to know
> > > who you are you talking with.
> >
> > Still again I did so... but people were to busy taking up a flamewar...
> > read my other posts please before saying so.
>
> I read the thread you pointed. I also read your answer (the "you are not
> working on the DDP").

My thanks went to the entire DDTP community because i appreciate their
work and i still do so.

> > That's why i was asking information to grisu in the beginning for which is
> > the proper procedure. Only a nice flamewar was born out of it.
>
> Grisu is _not_ the translation team coordinator for French. Denis is.
> Grisu manages the DDTP but that does not mean he gets a decision on how a
> translation should be made.

I did ask for a procedure. not to solve the problem from us. There is a
difference.

> > And is this a reason to start a flamewar because i was asking information?
>
> You also help it becomse so, by being stubborn and not accepting Denis
> point of view.

I probably helped since asking something nicely didn't help much and
ansering back in a more formal way either.

>
> > > Saying otherwise is like saying that I have to keep, in Spanish, the same
> > > sentences as constructed in English when, frequently, a sentence in 
> > > Spanish
> > > is longer than in English and I can group information in the translation.
> >
> > Changing words and senteces does not necessary means changing layout.
>
> Could you please leave the layout-thingy?

If this was the only point in the entire discussion, sure i can leave it
out and we can stop discussing here.


Fabio

-- 
Our mission: make IPv6 the default IP protocol
"We are on a mission from God" - Elwood Blues

http://www.itojun.org/paper/itojun-nanog-200210-ipv6isp/mgp4.html

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 10:01:49AM +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
> > > Yes we are since in the first place we asked nicely to change the layout
> > > back to the original one (as it was before this translation) and then you
> > (..)
> >
> > Maintainers or developers do not have a say on how translations are done
> > except for gettext sintax errors. If you do not like how a translation team
> > works, but you do not understand the language, tough luck.
> 
> Do you think it is nice to start a discussion in english and see it forked
> in another language? specially when a exchange of information could have
> solved the issue at a much earlier stage?

I won't discuss that. It probably was not nice switching to other language 
but Denis was, in my point of view, asking the rest of the team (which 
might not be fluent in english)

> > The official maintainer is in _no_ way responsible for the _translated_
> > description of a package. Please, let translation teams do their work
> > without interfeering.
> 
> When DDTP will be integrate 100% in the system who will receive bugs on
> descriptions? you or the dd?

The translation team. Any other scheme is flawed and tends to problems
(people doing the same work will collide, it has happened in the past with
translations and will happen in the future if the maintainer, and not the
translation teams ,is still the one merging changes)

> Than please re-read my post. If believes that the french layout is better
> why not appling it to all the descriptions?

Because the layout is based on typographical conventions. That's what Denis 
said (more than once). What applied to french might not apply to english, 
or spanish, or chinese.

> > First, thanks to Denis work, projects like DDTP are possible. Without his
> > po-debconf half of the DDTP would be unmanagable. Please take time to know
> > who you are you talking with.
> 
> Still again I did so... but people were to busy taking up a flamewar...
> read my other posts please before saying so.

I read the thread you pointed. I also read your answer (the "you are not 
working on the DDP").

> That's why i was asking information to grisu in the beginning for which is
> the proper procedure. Only a nice flamewar was born out of it.

Grisu is _not_ the translation team coordinator for French. Denis is.
Grisu manages the DDTP but that does not mean he gets a decision on how a 
translation should be made.

> > > Why do you think we did ask kindly to have the french layout alligned with
> > > all the others? and we did not changed it ourself? Because we did not want
> > > to change the contents of the description even for a typo but having its
> > > layout alligned with the others.
> > >
> >
> > They don't have to! Content and layout in a translation is part of what the
> > translator has to do. If there are typographical rules that make necessary
> > a layout change a translator has to apply them!
> 
> And is this a reason to start a flamewar because i was asking information?

You also help it becomse so, by being stubborn and not accepting Denis 
point of view.

> > Saying otherwise is like saying that I have to keep, in Spanish, the same
> > sentences as constructed in English when, frequently, a sentence in Spanish
> > is longer than in English and I can group information in the translation.
> 
> Changing words and senteces does not necessary means changing layout.

Could you please leave the layout-thingy? If an itemised list is not 
understood in say, Chowinese (just invented the language), you cannot push 
it through the throat of the translation team, however you are. It will 
_not_ be understood by the native language speakers, it will not sound 
proper or what else.

> thanks
> Fabio
> 

Friendly,


Javi


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Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Jean-Philippe Guérard]

Hi !

Le 2003-05-13 09:42:16 +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto écrivait :
> On Tue, 13 May 2003, Pierre Machard wrote:
> just an examoke:
> 
> http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/ch-best-pkging-practices.en.html#s-bpp-pkg-desc
> 
> "The long description should consist of full and complete sentences."
> 
> I miss to see how a list can fullfil this reference.

Please note that the long list that you mention is, in French, a single 
complete sentence:

| Description-fr: Serveur HTTP polyvalent haute performance
|  Serveur le plus populaire du monde, Apache est caracterise par sa conception
|  modulaire et autorise la selection dynamique des modules d'extension lors de
|  l'execution.
|  Quelques-uns de ses points forts sont l'etendue des personnalisations
|  possibles, l'ajustement dynamique du nombre de processus du serveur, un
|  eventail complet de modules disponibles, incluant :
|- plusieurs mecanismes d'authentification ;
|- des analyseurs de serveurs de HTML ;
|- des inclusions cote serveur ;
|- un controle d'acces ;
|- une emulation de metafichiers httpd CERN ;
|- un cache proxy, etc.
|  Apache supporte aussi les sites internes virtuels multiples.
|  .
|  Des paquets Debian separes sont disponibles pour le PHP, mod_perl, le
|  support Servlet Java, Apache-SSL et d'autres extensions habituelles. Plus
|  d'informations sont disponibles sur http://www.apache.org/.

The sentence starts at "Quelques-uns" and ends with "- un cache proxy". 
This is why there are semi-comas instead of dots at the end of each 
item, and also why there are no capital at the beginning of each 
item. This is a French typographical convention.

Your text has not been cut in separate items, but is simply written 
following the French typographical rules.

HTH.

-- 
Jean-Philippe Guérard -- mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Yannick Roehlly]

Dear Debian fellows,

In France,  we have  an expression that  says "a  storm in a  glass of
water". I sincerely think we are in such a case.

Let  me summarise  what  happened, according  to  what I  read on  the
debian-l10-french list.

Once,  there was a  description for  the Apache  package using  a long
coma-separated  list  for the  apache  modules  both  in the  original
description and in the French translation.

Then, the apache maintainers changed the description only changing the
PHP3  in  PHP.  What  bother  Fabio Massimo  is  that  the new  French
translation goes  further and  also changes the  layout of  the module
list.

I'm sure being a package maintainer is like taking care of a baby and,
as a good  father, you feel very concerned  even with the translations
of your baby. This honours you but...

Fabio Massimo, you say :

> Yes we are [unhappy with the new translation since in the first place we 
> asked nicely to change the layout
> back to the original one (as it was before this translation) and then you
> jumped in with some fancy reasons and even after 3/4 attempts to explain
> to you why the layout has to be changed back you were not able to
> understand them, 

I'm sorry, but you never explained  - at least on the french l10n list
- why the layout  of the translation had to be  changed. You only said
that  the maintainers  are  responsible  of the  layout  and that  you
dislike the new one so it has to be changed.

Dear maintainers,  are the layouts  of the translations  so important?
Maybe sometimes a strange layout  can cause technical problems for its
displaying, but  I don't think  coma-separated list vs.  itemised list
worth the fight.



Furthermore,  theses  mails  rise  the problem  of  conflicts  between
maintainers and translators about translations.

I am not a real Debian translator (do I loose all credibility for what
I said before? ;-). I'm just a proof-reader.

I agree  that the English version  of a Debian document  should be the
"official"  one,  because  it's  expected  to be  understood  by  most
people. But  when you  have to  translate a text,  you are  facing two
sorts of  problems: the specific  requirements of your  language (like
non-breaking spaces  in French) and  the "in my language,  we'd rather
say this in that way". Thus,  if we want to make a _good_ translation,
and I'm  sure everybody  wants it  here, we often  have to  make large
changes in  the translation.  I can  tell you that  we are  making big
effort to be sure not to pervert the initial sense of the text.

Is  it  a problem?  Shouldn't  the  maintainers  be confident  in  the
translators and their work?

I'm sure we are here to walk  together to make Debian a good (well, in
fact a  better, it's yet very  good) distribution. So lets  not make a
storms in glass of water.

Communautairement, (fellowshiply ?)

Yannick

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Fabio Massimo Di Nitto]

On Tue, 13 May 2003, Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña wrote:

> On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 06:57:45AM +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
> (...)
> >
> > http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-french/2003/debian-l10n-french-200305/msg00121.html
> >
> > The first post to the mailing list is the result of the only mail in which
> > i was asking Michael Bramer how to behave in the situation in which
> > translators do not respect the layout of the original description.
>
> IMHO this should have been discussed in the debian-i18n first.

That was not my decision, i was asking information and got an answer
posted back to the l10n-french.

> > Yes we are since in the first place we asked nicely to change the layout
> > back to the original one (as it was before this translation) and then you
> (..)
>
> Maintainers or developers do not have a say on how translations are done
> except for gettext sintax errors. If you do not like how a translation team
> works, but you do not understand the language, tough luck.

Do you think it is nice to start a discussion in english and see it forked
in another language? specially when a exchange of information could have
solved the issue at a much earlier stage?

> > > Now Apache maintainers are telling us that they chose another layout
> > > and we are bound to it.
> >
> > Yes because the official maintainer is responsable for the description of
> > a package. Including the layout and this was told already in the same
> > message above.
>
> The official maintainer is in _no_ way responsible for the _translated_
> description of a package. Please, let translation teams do their work
> without interfeering.

When DDTP will be integrate 100% in the system who will receive bugs on
descriptions? you or the dd?

> >
> > File a wishlist bug as you were told already:
> >
> > http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting
>
> DDTP is not handled by BTS bugs.

Than please re-read my post. If believes that the french layout is better
why not appling it to all the descriptions?

> First, thanks to Denis work, projects like DDTP are possible. Without his
> po-debconf half of the DDTP would be unmanagable. Please take time to know
> who you are you talking with.

Still again I did so... but people were to busy taking up a flamewar...
read my other posts please before saying so.

> Second, there are no policies for translations. DDTP translators have to
> respect the views of their language translation team, not of the
> maintainer. If you wish to change that view, join the translation team, do
> not impose the changes "upstream" (from the developer side). If you do not
> read the language or understand it then, at most, you can send a mail to
> the Debian translation coordinator [1]

That's why i was asking information to grisu in the beginning for which is
the proper procedure. Only a nice flamewar was born out of it.

> > Why do you think we did ask kindly to have the french layout alligned with
> > all the others? and we did not changed it ourself? Because we did not want
> > to change the contents of the description even for a typo but having its
> > layout alligned with the others.
> >
>
> They don't have to! Content and layout in a translation is part of what the
> translator has to do. If there are typographical rules that make necessary
> a layout change a translator has to apply them!

And is this a reason to start a flamewar because i was asking information?

> Saying otherwise is like saying that I have to keep, in Spanish, the same
> sentences as constructed in English when, frequently, a sentence in Spanish
> is longer than in English and I can group information in the translation.

Changing words and senteces does not necessary means changing layout.

> [1] There is really no such position in Debian for all languages, but you
> can take the web translation list at
> www.debian.org/devel/website/translation_coordinators
> or try to find them in
> www.debian.org/international

thanks
Fabio

-- 
Our mission: make IPv6 the default IP protocol
"We are on a mission from God" - Elwood Blues

http://www.itojun.org/paper/itojun-nanog-200210-ipv6isp/mgp4.html

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Denis Barbier]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 06:57:45AM +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On Tue, 13 May 2003, Denis Barbier wrote:
> 
> > In this thread we were told to change the French translation because
> > Apache maintainers did not like its layout.  I will come back to this
> > issue below, but here is a better example of the problem I want to
> > exhibit.
> 
> Here is the references to the thread. If you like to bring up discussion
> in this way let people read everything and not only your summary that
> takes points from different messages in wrong order and does not give any
> idea on how the thread evolved during the time.
> 
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-french/2003/debian-l10n-french-200305/msg00121.html

Original subject was kept in order to let people find this thread easily,
but I could indeed have made this pointer available.

[...]
> (all this has been discussed in the thread and let's fly over the
> french part with some sarcastic "Anyone has some Valium"? in which
> we were removed from the To: and Cc:)

I posted some messages to d-l-f only in French in order to get
clarifications in my mother tongue, and also to ask if other
translators could jump in.
About the Valium sentence, I suggest you to have all my messages
translated into English, you obviously do not read French.  In this
thread I was telling that this discussion was getting on my nerves
and I needed some Valium to calm me down.  I won't try to make you
believe that my posts did not contain any sarcasm, but they can
mostly be found in English messages, no need to misinterpret the
French ones.

Denis

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Fabio Massimo Di Nitto]

On Tue, 13 May 2003, Pierre Machard wrote:

> Hi;
>
> [I reply to this message, since I am the guy who translates the
> Description]
>
> On tue 13 may 2003 at 06:57 +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
> [...]
> > > Now Apache maintainers are telling us that they chose another layout
> > > and we are bound to it.
> >
> > Yes because the official maintainer is responsable for the description of
> > a package. Including the layout and this was told already in the same
> > message above.
>
> Please try to consider that each language as its particularity.

I do not understand why the previous translation was alligned to our
layout and noone is still able to give me an answer about this.

> > File a wishlist bug as you were told already:
> >
> > http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting
>
> A whishlist bug against what ? Against the French Language because we
> do use an itemized list where English uses a different layout ?

If you really believe that the apache description should be improved than
you file a bug against apache asking to changing layout, proposing the
better one so that everyone can be alligned to it.

> We are performing a lot of reviews to ensure that the quality of the
> translation is good. 3 translators were agreed to use this translation.

We did not, i will repeat this until the end of the world, discuss the
quality of the contents. We are discussing the layout. Quoting myself
from
http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-french/2003/debian-l10n-french-200305/msg00123.html

"Be carefull. We don't want to make a big deal out of it and neither we
are telling the french translation team that is bad what they did. We
appreciate seriously the effort that the ddtp team is doing. What we are
saying is that if they prefer another format they can just contanct us. We
are open to suggestions. We just didn't really like the way it was done
and that the format is not coherent with the original one."

> I do. Denis kindly answers to your message because he is _very_ relevant
> with i18n and l10n.

Until the last 2 messages I did not asked for name or pointed fingers
against people directly and i kept the talk as much generic as possible
because i don't care who does the job until it gets done correctly.


> Try to understand what Denis means. The problem on that very problem is
> that you would not admit that we are true (from the translator's point of
> view).
>

from the translator point of view you should only translate. That's what i
do when i submit italian translation. If have a concern about anything
else i ask the maintainer. prove that I am wrong.

> Generaly speeking, we (people aware of l10n and i18n) believe that the
> maintainer's job is not to deal with these issues. Translators are
> bored to fix maintainers mistakes. Moreover, I believe that a maintainer
> should not loose his time on l10n.

Yes we do.

just an examoke:

http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/ch-best-pkging-practices.en.html#s-bpp-pkg-desc

"The long description should consist of full and complete sentences."

I miss to see how a list can fullfil this reference.

> > Why do you think we did ask kindly to have the french layout alligned with
> > all the others? and we did not changed it ourself? Because we did not want
> > to change the contents of the description even for a typo but having its
> > layout alligned with the others.
>
> The question is Why do you want to have its layout alligned with the
> others ?

I could simply ask you the question the other way around: why do you want
to be different from all the others? but it's a chicken & egg stupid game.

The reason is simple. The DD decide the layout and the descriptio and it
is responsable for it again the community and the users, no matter in
which language. All the others cope with our layout and i don't see any
language barrier that does not permit you to do so.

Fabio

-- 
Our mission: make IPv6 the default IP protocol
"We are on a mission from God" - Elwood Blues

http://www.itojun.org/paper/itojun-nanog-200210-ipv6isp/mgp4.html

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 06:57:45AM +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
(...)
> 
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-french/2003/debian-l10n-french-200305/msg00121.html
> 
> The first post to the mailing list is the result of the only mail in which
> i was asking Michael Bramer how to behave in the situation in which
> translators do not respect the layout of the original description.

IMHO this should have been discussed in the debian-i18n first.

(...)
> > It is time to go back to the Apache description.  Maintainers are
> > unhappy with the French translation provided by the DDTP.
> 
> Yes we are since in the first place we asked nicely to change the layout
> back to the original one (as it was before this translation) and then you
(..)

Maintainers or developers do not have a say on how translations are done 
except for gettext sintax errors. If you do not like how a translation team 
works, but you do not understand the language, tough luck. 

> > There is a comma separated list of items in English, and an itemized
> > list in French.
> > The point is that from a typographical point of view (in French) the
> > preferred format for a long list of items is an itemized list; a comma
> > separated list is considered as bad looking, this is certainly why
> > the translator chose this format.  I do not know English rules about
> > this issue, and thus cannot tell if original description is right
> > or not.
> 
> you already received an answer to this here:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-french/2003/debian-l10n-french-200305/msg00140.html
(...)

And he answered you back. The layout of the french description was changed
because it _did_not_ fit French typographical rules. The first translator
made a mistake (quite usual since people translating don't always know
their own language's rules) and it was fixed later on by fixing the layout
(4 months later?) Makes sense to me.

> > Now Apache maintainers are telling us that they chose another layout
> > and we are bound to it.
> 
> Yes because the official maintainer is responsable for the description of
> a package. Including the layout and this was told already in the same
> message above.

The official maintainer is in _no_ way responsible for the _translated_ 
description of a package. Please, let translation teams do their work 
without interfeering. 

> 
> File a wishlist bug as you were told already:
> 
> http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting

DDTP is not handled by BTS bugs. 

> There are policies for description. DDTP as developers have to respect
> them. but i guess it is not your case since according to your post you do
> not contribute to any of them.
> 
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-french/2003/debian-l10n-french-200305/msg00166.html

First, thanks to Denis work, projects like DDTP are possible. Without his 
po-debconf half of the DDTP would be unmanagable. Please take time to know 
who you are you talking with.

Second, there are no policies for translations. DDTP translators have to 
respect the views of their language translation team, not of the 
maintainer. If you wish to change that view, join the translation team, do 
not impose the changes "upstream" (from the developer side). If you do not 
read the language or understand it then, at most, you can send a mail to 
the Debian translation coordinator [1]

> Why do you think we did ask kindly to have the french layout alligned with
> all the others? and we did not changed it ourself? Because we did not want
> to change the contents of the description even for a typo but having its
> layout alligned with the others.
> 

They don't have to! Content and layout in a translation is part of what the 
translator has to do. If there are typographical rules that make necessary 
a layout change a translator has to apply them!

Saying otherwise is like saying that I have to keep, in Spanish, the same 
sentences as constructed in English when, frequently, a sentence in Spanish 
is longer than in English and I can group information in the translation.

I completely agree with Denis that developers or upstreams should not
interfere at all with the translation work, much less make changes to
translated files (unless trivial, and even then they should be notified). 
Otherwise it makes it impossible for translators work in a constant
translate and review process parallel to the work done upstream (and broken
if somebody removes fuzzy entries, modifies text or change gettext's XX.po
in anyway)

Regards



Javi


[1] There is really no such position in Debian for all languages, but you 
can take the web translation list at 
www.debian.org/devel/website/translation_coordinators
or try to find them in 
www.debian.org/international


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Description: PGP signature

Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Pierre Machard]

Hi;

[I reply to this message, since I am the guy who translates the
Description]

On tue 13 may 2003 at 06:57 +0200, Fabio Massimo Di Nitto wrote:
[...]
> > Now Apache maintainers are telling us that they chose another layout
> > and we are bound to it.
> 
> Yes because the official maintainer is responsable for the description of
> a package. Including the layout and this was told already in the same
> message above.

Please try to consider that each language as its particularity. 

> 
> > This is stupid, our constraints are different,
> > so I do not see why we could not adopt another format if it is more
> > adequate for our own language.
> 
> File a wishlist bug as you were told already:
> 
> http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting

A whishlist bug against what ? Against the French Language because we
do use an itemized list where English uses a different layout ?

> > Of course if there are good reasons
> > to promote a given layout, you can give them[1], but telling that
> > ``this is done that way in English so you must adopt this format
> > too'' is insane.
> 
> You still were not able to explain us why the previous translation had the
> same layout than (still in the same message as before)

We are performing a lot of reviews to ensure that the quality of the
translation is good. 3 translators were agreed to use this translation.

> > In conclusion, please do not try to impose your views on how
> > translations should look like in your package.
> 
> There are policies for description. DDTP as developers have to respect
> them. but i guess it is not your case since according to your post you do
> not contribute to any of them.
> 
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-french/2003/debian-l10n-french-200305/msg00166.html

I do. Denis kindly answers to your message because he is _very_ relevant
with i18n and l10n.

Try to understand what Denis means. The problem on that very problem is
that you would not admit that we are true (from the translator's point of 
view). 

Generaly speeking, we (people aware of l10n and i18n) believe that the 
maintainer's job is not to deal with these issues. Translators are
bored to fix maintainers mistakes. Moreover, I believe that a maintainer
should not loose his time on l10n. 

> > You have to make sure that translations are up to date and correct, but
> > when you edit translated files yourself, you are most of the times
> > making translator's life harder without any gain for our end users.
> 
> Why do you think we did ask kindly to have the french layout alligned with
> all the others? and we did not changed it ourself? Because we did not want
> to change the contents of the description even for a typo but having its
> layout alligned with the others.

The question is Why do you want to have its layout alligned with the
others ?


Cheers,
-- 
Pierre Machard
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  TuxFamily.org
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> techmag.info
+33(0)668 178 365http://migus.tuxfamily.org/gpg.txt
GPG: 1024D/23706F87 : B906 A53F 84E0 49B6 6CF7 82C2 B3A0 2D66 2370 6F87


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Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)

[Fabio Massimo Di Nitto]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Tue, 13 May 2003, Denis Barbier wrote:

> In this thread we were told to change the French translation because
> Apache maintainers did not like its layout.  I will come back to this
> issue below, but here is a better example of the problem I want to
> exhibit.

Here is the references to the thread. If you like to bring up discussion
in this way let people read everything and not only your summary that
takes points from different messages in wrong order and does not give any
idea on how the thread evolved during the time.

http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-french/2003/debian-l10n-french-200305/msg00121.html

The first post to the mailing list is the result of the only mail in which
i was asking Michael Bramer how to behave in the situation in which
translators do not respect the layout of the original description.

> It is time to go back to the Apache description.  Maintainers are
> unhappy with the French translation provided by the DDTP.

Yes we are since in the first place we asked nicely to change the layout
back to the original one (as it was before this translation) and then you
jumped in with some fancy reasons and even after 3/4 attempts to explain
to you why the layout has to be changed back you were not able to
understand them, as well you did not understand that there is a procedure
for requesting such a change. (all this has been discussed in the thread
and let's fly over the french part with some sarcastic "Anyone has some
Valium"? in which we were removed from the To: and Cc:)

> >
> > ok, the ddtp db has this english/french apache description:
> > | # Package(s): apache
> > | # Package priority: task
> > | # Package prioritize: 50
> > | Description: Versatile, high-performance HTTP server
> > |  The most popular server in the world, Apache features a modular
> > |  design and supports dynamic selection of extension modules at runtime.
> > |  Some of its strong points are its range of possible customization,
> > |  dynamic adjustment of the number of server processes, and a whole
> > |  range of available modules including many authentication mechanisms,
> > |  server-parsed HTML, server-side includes, access control, CERN httpd
> > |  metafiles emulation, proxy caching, etc.  Apache also supports multiple
> > |  virtual homing.
> > |  .
> > |  Separate Debian packages are available for PHP, mod_perl, Java
> > |  Servlet support, Apache-SSL, and other common extensions.  More
> > |  information is available at http://www.apache.org/.
>
>
> > | Description-fr: Serveur HTTP polyvalent haute performance
> > |  Serveur le plus populaire du monde, Apache est caracterise par sa 
> > conception
> > |  modulaire et autorise la selection dynamique des modules d'extension 
> > lors de
> > |  l'execution.
> > |  Quelques-uns de ses points forts sont l'etendue des personnalisations
> > |  possibles, l'ajustement dynamique du nombre de processus du serveur, un
> > |  eventail complet de modules disponibles, incluant :
> > |- plusieurs mecanismes d'authentification ;
> > |- des analyseurs de serveurs de HTML ;
> > |- des inclusions cote serveur ;
> > |- un controle d'acces ;
> > |- une emulation de metafichiers httpd CERN ;
> > |- un cache proxy, etc.
> > |  Apache supporte aussi les sites internes virtuels multiples.
> > |  .
> > |  Des paquets Debian separes sont disponibles pour le PHP, mod_perl, le
> > |  support Servlet Java, Apache-SSL et d'autres extensions habituelles. Plus
> > |  d'informations sont disponibles sur http://www.apache.org/.
>

> There is a comma separated list of items in English, and an itemized
> list in French.
> The point is that from a typographical point of view (in French) the
> preferred format for a long list of items is an itemized list; a comma
> separated list is considered as bad looking, this is certainly why
> the translator chose this format.  I do not know English rules about
> this issue, and thus cannot tell if original description is right
> or not.

you already received an answer to this here:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-french/2003/debian-l10n-french-200305/msg00140.html

> Now Apache maintainers are telling us that they chose another layout
> and we are bound to it.

Yes because the official maintainer is responsable for the description of
a package. Including the layout and this was told already in the same
message above.

> This is stupid, our constraints are different,
> so I do not see why we could not adopt another format if it is more
> adequate for our own language.

File a wishlist bug as you were told already:

http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting

> Of course if there are good reasons
> to promote a given layout, you can give them[1], but telling that
> ``this is done that way in English so you must adopt this format
> too'' is insane.

You still were not able to explain us why the previous translation had the
same layout than (still in the same message as befor