Translations: String freezes, CVS converging, Packaging

[Bill Nottingham]

Thomas Canniot (thomas.canniot at laposte.net) said: 
> Ok it may be a nightmare but it tries to solve the following problem:
> when a translation is made too late after the creation of the new
> package before an update (let's say during the life cycle of the
> distro), it has very little chance to be included before the next
> release of fedora. Generally, the answer is "Thanks, I push your
> translation in the NEXT rebuild" (in other words, "Too late guy, wait
> some more weeks or months). Fedora upstream software are not being
> repackaged every day and pushed as updates.

Yes, they are. 11 different system-config packages have been pushed
as FC6 updates, as has pirut, initscripts and other things.

If you go to separate .po files, then, for *every* package that's
pushed post release you'll need to add a special new patch to that
releases' version of the master file, get it translated, and push
out a specific update for that release. You can't just unilaterly
move from the head, because other things that *aren't* pushed for
FC6 (or whatever) have moved on, and you'll get translations you
don't want.

If you work directly in the upstream source for these things, as
happen now, you avoid these problems. What's needed is better tools
for making sure translators are notified on changes, better
enforcement of freezes, etc. Splitting the translations off into
separate packages just makes the synchronization process worse.

Bill