Trademarks & Translations [was:Re: Fedora-trans-list Digest, Vol 18, Issue 4]

[Munzir Taha]

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في يوم الخميس 06 رجب 1426 16:38, كتب Sankarshan Mukhopadhay:
> Igor Nestorović wrote:
> > Maybe it would be a good idea for you to put a list of recommendations
> > on how translators should deal with the names of your specific tools.
> > What should be considered for a translation and what should remain due
> > to legal patents, trademarks etc.

I would also like to clarify and stress the point that our confusion, at least
on the Arabic mailing list, is not whether to translate but whether to
transliterate. Some of our members used to transliterate  the trademarks and
we have a discussion about it long ago and I have just found my comment on
the subject which is below:

<MyOldComment>
> I know we would reach this critical point ;) Well, ahem! Cough!
> Mohamed, I prefer to leave this as it's. Linux as it's. I am not saying
> it's wrong to transliterate it. I am not saying my suggestion is better.
> What I want to say is first we need to be consistent. It's not correct to
> transliterate some products and leave the others just because it sounds to
> you/me acceptable. Second, this is not something new. Actually, MS and
> apple (who precede us in the field of translation of programs and operating
> systems) always leave their OS name and software as it is. If any one here
> has a Windows or Mac installed, he can go and check that they never
> translate words such as Windows, Office, Word, Excel, Access, ...
>
> Let alone other famous companies like adobe, macromedia, ... and their
> products: Photoshop, Flash, ...
>
> Most people don't even feel it. Arab users who don't know a single English
> word would be able to identify their MS Word program from the menu and work
> with it. If you ask them whether it's in English or Arabic after they shut
> down their computers they won't remember ;)
</MyOldComment>

Now, it's the time to hear somethig official from Redhat and to document this
thing on their website. Should we transliterate words like Red Hat, Linux,
GNU, KDE, GNOME, ... or should we write them in English letters among our
native language letters? What about contributors names like  "Harald Hoyer" or 
"Paul Gampe" when we meet it on our files?

I know RedHat/Fedora advocates "Linux is about choice" and they are not going
to reject the translation that doesn't abide to this rule but there should be
a recommendation. I don't care which choice they choose but I care about
consistency more.

The problem would be more clear when you meet things like

KCalc
KFAX
KMines
OpenOffice.org Writer

You see my point?

> >From what I recall, the OpenOffice.org team when faced with the same
>
> issue put out a *do not translate/localise* list. Perhaps doing the same
> for Fedora, particularly with respect to the Trademarks is a great idea.

Thanks for this tip. Will you please post a link to this list?

- --
Munzir Taha
Telecommunications and Electronics Engineer
Maintainer of Fedora Arabic Translation Project
https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-trans-ar
Maintainer of the OpenBugs project page at
http://www.arabic-fedora.org/munzir/OpenBugs.html
Master CIW Designer, ICDL, MOUS, Linux+, LPI 101
New Horizons CLC, Riyadh, SA
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