Forwarded to the list on behalf of Siebrand Mazeland.
On 31 December 2007 and 1 January 2008 I sent an e-mail to which this is a
follow up[1,2].
First things first, because not everyone reads e-mails completely:
* MediaWiki localisation (that is the translation of English source messages
to other languages) depends on you! If you speak a language other than
English, care about your language in MediaWiki and Wikimedia and like
translating, go to http://translatewiki.net, register a user and start
contributing translations for MediaWiki and MediaWiki extensions. When your
localisation is complete, keep coming back regularly to re-complete it and
do quality control. Thank you in advance for all your contributions and
effort.
* The i18n and L10n area of MediaWiki requires continuous efforts. If this
area of FOSS has your interest: we need your help. Please offer your
development skills to further MediaWiki's i18n, L10n and translation
capabilities[3,4].
All statistics are based on MediaWiki 1.16 alpha, SVN version r60527 (31
December 2009). Comparisons are to MediaWiki 1.14 alpha, SVN version r45277
(1 January 2009).
See http://translatewiki.net/wiki/MediaWiki_2009 for a wiki version of this
message.
==Introduction==
* Localisation or L10n - the process of adapting the software to be as
familiar as possible to a specific locale (topic of this message)
* Internationalisation or i18n - the process of ensuring that an application
is capable of adapting to local requirements (out of scope of this message)
MediaWiki has a user interface definition for 362 languages (up from 348).
Of those languages at least 39 language codes are duplicates and/or serve a
purpose for usability[5]. Reporting on them, however, is not relevant. So
MediaWiki in its current state supports 323 languages (up from 322).
MediaWiki has 346 core language files (up from 326), of which 27 are
redirects from the duplicates/usability group or just empty[6]. So MediaWiki
has an active in-product localisation for 308 languages (up from 299).
The MediaWiki core product has several areas that can be localised:
* regular messages that can and should be localised (2,369 - up 9% from
2,168)
* optional messages that can be localised, which is mostly used for
languages not using a Latin script (187 - up 8% from 173)
* ignored messages that should not be localised (152 - up 2% from 149)
* namespace names and namespace aliases (17 - no change)
* magic words (142 - up 8% from 132)
* special page names (88 - up 2% from 86)
* other (directionality, date formats, separators, book store lists, link
trail, and others)
Localisation of MediaWiki revolves around all of the above. Reporting is
done on the regular messages only.
MediaWiki is more than just the core product. On
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:All_extensions 1500 extensions (up
25% from 1200) have some kind of documentation. This analysis only takes the
code currently present in svn.wikimedia.org/svnroot/mediawiki/trunk into
account. The source code repository contains give or take 445 extensions (up
25% from 370). Most extensions in the MediaWiki Subversion repository now
use the reference implementation for i18n. Currently 8,200 messages for
MediaWiki extensions can be localised in a consistent way (up 37% from
6,000).
==MediaWiki localisation in practice==
MediaWiki localisation has moved further to a centralised collaborative
process in translatewiki.net in the past year. Where in 2008 some wikis were
still translating in their own MediaWiki: namespace, the introduction of the
LocalisationUpdate extension[7], especially in the Wikimedia Foundation
wikis, has taken away the last hurdle for local translation against
centralised translation: instant gratification. Translations that are
committed to Subversion can be added to wikis without requiring software
updates, as often as desirable.
Little to no translations are submitted through the Bugzilla ticketing
system or directly by SVN committers. Exceptions are the localisations of
Hebrew, Cantonese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Classical
Chinese and Persian, that are still actively maintained in SVN, next to
regular contributors from the centralised system.
==The past, the present and the future==
MediaWiki localisation has always been a volunteer effort, and expect that
it will remain so. 2009 brought a successful Google Summer of Code project,
executed by Niklas Laxstrom [8,9] and the Wikimedia Foundation is supporting
the localisation that takes place at translatewiki.net[10]. Not only
MediaWiki, but all Open Source projects that are supported there[11] benefit
from these developments. We want to keep using the Translate extension
technology and expand on it, as well as nourish our translator base of
nearly 2,000 translators by providing them with better tooling and more
projects in 2010. Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland[12], the Dutch Wikimedia
Chapter has granted 2,000 Euro to Stichting Open Progress[13] for the
t
