[Mailman-i18n] Move to Launchpad?

[Barry Warsaw]

I am CC'ing Danilo Segan (Launchpad translations team lead) on this  
message.  Danilo, please correct any misconceptions I have about  
Launchpad translations, or provide any other comments that you think  
would help us in this transition.

On Jul 21, 2009, at 6:20 AM, David Planella wrote:

> Hi Barry and all,

Hi David,

> If the final decision is to use Launchpad for translations as well,
> I'd suggest to publish all branches for translations (2.1, 2.2 and
> 3.0), clearly indicating the status of each version (e.g. development
> focus, future development, maintenance-only) in the description of the
> translation template. The (relatively) new feature [1] [2] of
> automatically uploading new translation templates upon commit on a bzr
> branch would certainly make this easier. Message sharing between
> branches is also an interesting feature not yet widely announced but
> already in use. It effectively allows translations to be automatically
> shared across branches, which for translators means that they only
> have to translate in one branch and those translations with identical
> msgids will be instantly translated in the other branches.

I've now done this.  I've registered the 2.1, 2.2, and 3.0 branches as  
the translation branches for Mailman series of the same names.   
However, I am thinking about splitting out the catalogs and .po files  
into a separate branch, at least for MM3 because I'd like to  
distribute them as a separate plugin.  If/when I get around to that  
I'll fiddle with the translation branches.

I'm not actually sure how useful it is to have a translation branch  
for 2.1.

Note that I did /not/ upload all the .po files.  I think the legal  
clearance for the 2.1 translations is sketchy in places.  I want to  
clear this up, definitely for 3.0 if not also for 2.2.  I think to do  
this correctly will require starting from scratch and using Launchpad  
permissions to control who can approve and upload translations for  
2.2.  I know it's a shame to lose all of our 2.1 translations, but I'm  
confident we can leverage the community to help us out.

Launchpad supports sharing translations, which is awesome, but I think  
will probably not help us much since 2.2 still uses %-strings but 3.0  
uses $-strings.  However, if we're not able to use the 2.1  
translations, perhaps Mark can consider switching to $-strings for  
Mailman 2.2 also.

> Then again, I feel I must warn that I might be a bit biased, since I
> also work for Canonical as the Ubuntu Translations Coordinator :-).

Danilo has set up a translation group for Mailman translators.  We'll  
need to set up individual language teams inside Launchpad specifically  
for the Mailman project.  Danilo has told me that while there's a GNU  
Translations group in Launchpad, it's not very active.  Their names  
will be of the form mailman-l10n-xx where xx is the language code. As  
David implies, there's already a mailman-l10n-ca for Catalan which he  
owns, so perhaps we can use that as a guinea pig.  We need to add that  
team to the Mailman Translation group, but we have to be careful about  
its membership and permissions.

As I understand it, the proper legal framework for translations should  
be:

* Every person who joins a mailman translation team should officially  
disclaim copyright with the Free Software Foundation.  I will help  
coordinate that effort.

* We need the individual translation teams to restrict membership to  
ensure that its members have signed the disclaimer form.  The team  
owners will be the gatekeepers so it's up to me to make sure the team  
owners understand their responsibility before adding the team to the  
Mailman translation group.

* Once we get disclaimer forms, we can accept that contributor's  
translations.

>> If there are concerns, questions, or complaints about Launchpad's
>> translation services, feel free to bring that up here or in the  
>> Launchpad
>> public forums.  I'll answer as best I can or find an expert on that  
>> part of
>> the system.  From my perspective, it would be nice to re-integrate  
>> this part
>> of the development/release cycle.
>>
>
> Or on IRC for those who prefer it: #launchpad on Freenode. I'm usually
> there (dpm) but most importantly the Launchpad Translations developers
> are also there, and we're always glad to help with any questions or
> requests.

David, Danilo, let me know if the above makes sense.  If you have  
anything to add either technically, legally, or logistically, please  
let us know.

I plan on updating http://wiki.list.org/display/DEV/ 
Internationalization with all the new workflow once it's settled.

Thanks everyone,
-Barry

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