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Re: Arabic Maintainership



On Sat, Jun 26, 2004 at 07:32:31AM -0400, Sherif Abdelgawad wrote:
> 
> Disclaimer: Whatever stated here is my own view and openion,
> has nothing to do with redhat nor Fedora Project.
> 
> Note: I will keep stating the above disclaimer till Mr. Mohammed
>       stop treating my msgs as redhat employee.

Noted.

> You can not force your way or request to have everything the
> way you used to do. Wait and see how this is being handled. 

I think you are misunderstanding me here. I am simply trying to be part
of this process, instead of waiting to see it happening magically. Isn't
this the spirity of Open Source, an open dialogue?

> I belive the model here is not ment to be only for arabic ppl
> to translate. So do not assume that a system here does not
> fit your needs because you personally has another model.

It's not a personal issue, Sherif. This is simply explaining why we are
having a hard time accommodating with this. If you have suggestions as
to how we can work around it, then that would be great.

> Before you propose anything, we need to establish Fedora Arabic 
> translation team. Regardless if the translators are from Arabeyes

There already is a Fedora Arabic translation team -- it is simply not
recognized by Fedora itself. There are 7 members (excluding Youcef)
involved in this.

> or from any other group or indeviduals, I belive the frame work
> under the current established process (which still to be finished)
> is able to accommodate all.

This is my/our hope. I am sure that if we all keep our heads leveled, we
can reach a solution that would fit (almost) everyone ;)

> I am not sure if we to care about CVS and other process carried anywhere
> else. I doubt that all other translations keep the same model you
> are talking about, and I see no reason why we should force a different
> model for arabic. There is mailing list, we can have arabic mailing

Not really forcing any different model. Our model has been created to
fit around the pre-existing large projects (e.g. GNOME, KDE, Debian,
etc.). Also, as I understand it, even Fedora's current model can fit
nicely with this. I have misunderstood the system and from what I now
understand from Groh's posts, if there is a maintainer, there is no
problem at all for Arabeyes' model to fit nicely.

> list under fedora project to serve for arabic translators, there
> is CVS, and I doubt that we need to confuse new commers to go to
> different project proxying the work.

Most projects do offer language-specific mailing-lists if the
translation team is unable to have its own. We have our own, so we don't
need that option.

> I would prefer that you do not assume here anything. Things are still
> not finalized nor a process in place. 

I am not making any assumptions, I am simply stating what I understand
-- so if I am mistaken I can be corrected. 

> I am not sure if I understand you correct. There is something I need
> to ask here. If I step into a project, do I tell them hey guys
> I have system and I demand to be the owner as I have similar effort.
> What you need to understand that this is a Fedora Project, and any
> effort done should be under the Fedora Project. 

Not at all! That is not what I am saying. I am not saying that we have a
system. I am saying that we have a team of 8 translators assigned to the
project with one of them being the maintainer. This person (Youcef) woud
like to assume the role of maintainership w/ Fedora. That's all.

> Why it would be impossible for Arabeyes to fit here? I thought you said
> Arabeyes cares about Linux and help providing arabic translation
> to most of the projects. I do not understand the demand to grant

Sherif, it is not exactly impossible, it is just so difficult that it
makes it hardly worth the effort. For example, we have modules A, B, C,
D, E anf F. Arabeyes Fedora maintainer (not recognized by Fedora as the
maintainer) owns A, B, C and D. He improts it to Arabeyes' CVS. The
translation team works on it. Someone who is not involved in this team
but is interested in Fedora's Arabic translation grabs E and F. He works
on it, commits it directly to Fedora's CVS.

Now, when the Arabeyes Fedora maintainer attemptes to sync, he will get
a whole bunch of errors and conflicts because he does not have ownership
over the E and F modules. He then has to keep track of those modules,
each time. 

> maintainership or else. Basically if some one is not in Arabeyes
> should not contribute to Fedora Arabic translation? Fedora project

What I am saying is, essentially someone has to maintain it. If it's not
Arabeyes, then someone else. Arabeyes cannot maintain it _and_ have
people commit directly to Fedora's CVS at the same time. It just makes
the job too difficult. Again, if you have such strong objections against
Arabeyes doing this (and find that people may not want to join the
project), that is fine. Assemble a team of translators and do it
yourself then. I am sure Arabeyes will still support the effort in any
capacity it can.

> is public open source project I am not sure why anyone should
> get exclusive maintainership. Basically the framework here will

That is how all the other projects have done it. Arabeyes itself is
also public and open source. The only thing that differentiates it from
Fedora is that it is a grass-roots project, whereas Fedora has a
commercial entity (RedHat) behind it.

> make it easy for ANYONE to contribute. I do not see if you really
> care about providing arabic translation why the demand on controling
> that. No one told you that what you do will be taken from you
> or credited to someone else. So where is that control thing coming
> from? 

It is not control in the sense that you have understood. The control I
want is for the quality, not for the project itself. Whether Fedora is
done by Arabeyes or not, will not make a big difference to Arabeyes as a
project.

> I am not sure why this is important yet. I would care to discuss 
> specific arabic translation, contribute, discuss how the system
> should be not asking for force outside system or else you are
> not contributing. 

Please do. Let us discuss the specifics. I am sure we can all benefit
from a discussion of this type.

> I still would ask you to relax and let things get its final shape.
> Tone of threatening that if you do not give me this I am not working
> will not get anything done. 

I am not threatening, really. I am simply trying to help here. I
realize that my tone in the past couple posts has been a little too
passionate and for this reason I am removing passion from my posts. I am
not saying we will not work because we don't like the system. I am
saying we are not going to be able to work because of not getting
maintainership. That's all. 

> It seems you jumped to so many assumption and acted ont it 
> in your privious emails. You went later saying "now I understand"
> so it would be nice to start with listen first and ask to clear
> things before jumping to conculsion. Again I will appreciate

We all make mistakes, eh? ;)

> to stop saying "redhat employees" it is has been cleared
> to you more than time that Red Hat Employees are no different
> than the other contributors here, so which part of this
> you are not getting?

Noted, again.

> 
> You got me really so worked up with your way of talking
> and addressing things, and I am not sure that you would
> reach your goal of helping the arabic community with 
> the way you insists to address issues here.

Where else would you like me to address those issues?

> There was no issue to start with. Yet, you made
> a big deal and start accusing. You made up a story
> that modules is been taken and released retaken ..etc
> I still do not know where did you make this up from.

Yes, I believe there was a misunderstanding on our part (I believe it
wasn't just us, there were a few people who did not understand the new
status page system). 

> [..]
> I hope I made myself clear. So relax and stop 
> threatening that things will be droped if your
> demands is not granted. Let us get in a friendly
> talk here to work things out. Also try to understand
> this is an open source project not an arabeyes 
> project.

Sure -- hence my previous mail to you ;) Since both _are_ Open Source
projects (that last sentence almost makes it sound like Arabeyes is
not), they are brothers and sisters.. so they will be pulling one
another's hairs from time to time -- but they will always love one
another ;)

Regards
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------
| Mohammed Elzubeir    | Visit us at:                 |
|                      |  http://www.arabeyes.org/    |
| Arabeyes Project     | Homepage:                    |
| Unix the 'right' way |  http://elzubeir.fakkir.net/ |
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