fedora only for US users ?

[Pekka Savola]

On Sat, 27 Sep 2003, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> Pekka Savola wrote:
> > Some of my observations from technical translations:
> > 
> >  1) more often than not, they seem badly translated, or there just isn't
> > useful local Language terminology which would be commonly understood.
> 
> And how deferring translations is going to improve quality ?
> Short of actually paying technical translators (and yes some of them are 
> quite good, don't confuse summer intern work with real professional 
> stuff) the only way to have quality work is to expose translations as 
> soon as possible and have people report typos and errors (exactly what 
> rawhide is doing now)

Deferring is not improving the situation, of course.  It's just stating 
that it's not the most important problem of *Fedora*.  Proper translations 
will probably need worked on in other fora..

> >  2) technical folks don't even know what the local Language term X refers
> > to (compared to the English version), as the terms aren't stable, and
> > globally common.
> 
> The terms aren't stable or common when the translated body is small.
> Any big translation effort will find good terminology and standardise on 
> it. The worst thing that can happen is small teams doing bits without 
> any coordination (which happens when the translated works are not 
> published as soon as they are translated).
> 
> That the terms have no relation with the technical english equivalents 
> does not matter. Poetic nature matters more since that's what makes a 
> living language. When you look at it most english terms started as a bad 
>   analogy (from a technical point of view) or joke anyway.
> 
> Some of the best translations I've seen have nothing in common with the 
> english terms or the accepted accademical/commercial translation. But 
> they make perfect sense because someone at some time had a great 
> inspiration and found out a term that just fit. And this was in open 
> translation groups works btw.
> 
> And didn't you notice most of free software has an irc piggin english 
> that's no better that the translations you criticize ?

I'm not advocating that the translations resemble English.  What I tried
to say is that when I see, e.g., a Finnish term X (which is used *by the
translator* to refer to the English term Y), I have no idea what it means: 
English term Y, Z, W, or anything else.
 
> > So, using the local language is often a much bigger
> > problem, especially if you report bugs, discuss features or such in
> > English.
> 
> It poses a problem in reports all right. Just live with it. Reporters do 
> not speak C anyway. You might as well forbid icons because not two 
> persons will describe these colourfoul thinguies the same way.

Please note that Fedora is meant for the early adopters, enthusiasts, and 
developers.  An increased amount of cluefulness should be assumed.  
Especially with these user groups, getting feedback (e.g. bug reports that 
can be understood) is critical -- because you don't typically get bug 
reports (except maybe through official support channels, which don't exist 
for Fedora) otherwise.

> >  3) translations are often not really in sync with the latest versions, 
> > some translations are missing, or not everything is translated anyway.
> 
> And software is not perfect too. That's why we have a QA infrastructure. 
>   Demanding that some work should be held to higher standards just
> because it belongs to another profession is the higuest form of
> arrogance.

What I try to say that IMHO it is more important to spend the energy on
development, testing etc. _in this specific distribution, which should be
a "moving target", than continuously revising the translations.

But I don't really mind translations, especially if they're done by the 
folks for which that's the way they can contribute to the project.

However, what I do object to is getting into the state where we expect 
translations to be one of the number one priorities in this particular 
project.

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings