[libvirt] l10n/i18n ~ po files and their cycle

[Zdenek Styblik]

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On 01/25/11 21:17, Eric Blake wrote:
> On 01/25/2011 11:45 AM, Zdenek Styblik wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I somehow dared to open 'po/cs.po' file and it made me wonder what's the
>> life cycle of these files. Especially this file seems to be somehow
>> "shifted", because translations don't even match to their English
>> counterpart.
> 
> Upstream, the .po files are re-generated with the latest available
> translation at every release.  And if that is not frequent enough for
> you, running 'make dist' will regenerate the libvirt.pot master template
> to the current source code strings then re-merge all existing
> translation .po files to use that new template (you can also use make -C
> po update-po to update just the po directory instead of creating an
> entire distribution tarball).
> 
> I'm not sure where the best canonical location is for looking for the
> latest available translations, nor what schedule is used by the various
> translators in providing updated files for libvirt to incorporate
> per-release (and it probably differs by language) (GNU projects host
> translations on http://translationproject.org, but libvirt is not a GNU
> project).  Within the .po files, "shifted" locations are generally not a
> problem (locations in the .pot file are more for reference of the
> translator when translating a particular build of libvirt); gettext
> itself works on string contents rather than source code locations when

To be honest here, I haven't understood a bit of it. On the other hand,
I'm pretty maxed out and should be in bed already.

In the lame terms - modifying cs.po file - bad or good?
Where to put/post changes/diff/whatever.

And I must note I'm not going to use Czech translations by myself nor
planning to do 100% translation on my own time. Yet I can't stand
rubbish that's in the 'po/cs.po'.

On the other hand, if your answer is going to to be like: "What you're
doing is pretty much futile", then pat on back and move on *tired*

As for the plan. Clean up, translate as much as possible, somebody else
can eventually pick it up. I don't even know whom would to revision or
testing it.

> actually serving up translations.  Gettext also does a pretty decent job
> of fuzzy matching, both to make the translator's job easier
> (translations from the previous release that can carry forward to the
> current release are reused) and the end user (if the end user's
> translation database is older than the installed libvirt, they still get
> most strings translated if there wasn't a lot of churn in string
> contents in the meantime).
> 

I'm sorta speechless. Nothing against gettext or anything, but almost
everything marked as "fuzzy" is worth of deletion.
For its defense, the last translation is from 2008 or something.
I don't feel like being able to continue in constructive way in this
paragraph :s

>> I doubt anybody is using Czech translation for libvirt and to be honest,
>> I would be enormously surprised if someone, anyone, did.
> 
> One thing I've learned about i18n is to never be surprised at who is
> using a particular translation.  I'm sure that someone is using it, or
> there wouldn't have been a push to provide the translation file for
> inclusion in a libvirt release in the first place.
> 

No Czech speaking man cares, obviously. I'm not saying you are wrong.

Thanks,
Z.

- -- 
Zdenek Styblik
Net/Linux admin
OS TurnovFree.net
email: stybla at turnovfree.net
jabber: stybla at jabber.turnovfree.net
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