Re: KDE translation - a critical point

[Munzir Taha <munzirtaha at newhorizons dot com dot sa>]

Don't know why the web interface of my ISP messes the end of lines but I am 
trying to edit it so it's more readable.

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: Re: KDE translation - a critical point
Date: Yaum al-Ahad 15 Shawwal 1425 4:23 pm
From: munzirtaha at newhorizons dot com dot sa
To: Documentation and Translation <doc at arabeyes dot org>

On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 15:03:30 +0400 Mohammed Elzubeir wrote:
>That's unfortunate. However, currently, I am not aware of any files that are
>on Arabeyes' CVS but are _not_ in KDE's. You are  
>probably comparing the wrong  things. There are, however, files that are in 
>KDE's CVS but not in Arabeyes'.

I believe we have resolved most of removed files problems together during the 
last week and whenver I think every thing is OK I found one of the 
translators has wasted precious hours in a file that is changed a lot on KDE 
repository. I will give an example from the very minute. Ammar is now working 
on kdewebdev that I downloaded from arabeyes repository. 

kdewebdev/quanta.pot 2203 total on KDE repository
kdewebdev/quanta.pot 2192 total on arabeyes repository

Now, this file is a .pot file so I can't guess to which extent this file has 
been changed. It's true that 11 strings are added but how many are changed? 
May be a lot. So, I ended up downloading such files directly from KDE but in 
other situations there are some translations done on arabeyes that are not 
sync'ed to KDE which complicates it more.

Another example:

kdebase/kio_imap4 is 0% translated on arabeyes
kdebase/kio_imap4 almost translated on KDE

I myself have completed the translation of that file in our last project from 
KACST and committed the file to arabeyes before (since I surely don't have a 
cvs access to KDE directly) and you can see it translated here:
http://webcvs.kde.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/~checkout~/kde-i18n/ar/messages/kdebase/kio_imap4.po?rev=.;content-type=text%2Fplain;only_with_tag=KDE_3_3_BRANCH 

Yet another example
/kdebase/kwin_default_config.po

A file that's already been translated and uploaded via arabeyes to KDE and now 
it's OK on KDE but 0% translated on arabeyes. Maybe those files are not big 
but this is just to prove the point. After a week of tracing these things, 
still we are losing our translations.

So I need to go through hundreds of files to track such issues to insure that 
the translators won't reinvent the wheel and the bicycle before handling a 
file to a translator. Yes, it's my job now and I was doing this all the last 
week but the results of this project would not be as expected. I care about 
the poor results due to this extra effort.

>Right. You are being paid to do a
>job and so you are expected to produce results in a timely fashion. The
>good lot  of us at Arabeyes are not. Which means that whatever organization
>needs to produce this work needs to work around our working schedules. The
>reality is, I too have a job and am too expected to produce results in a
>timely fashion.   

>Welcome to Open Source and Volunteer based work.

>I am fine, but I am also extremely busy at work. I am taking time to write
>this so you know I am well aware of the situation and am working to resolve
>it. I have requested if a CVS account for Arabeyes could be made (e.g.
>'arabeyes' user) for KDE's CVS. I by no means have any plans to give you (or
>anyone else for that matter) my own user/pass on KDE's cvs server.

I am not asking for your OWN key. Just your permission to contact KDE and ask 
for a cvs account with arabeyes agreement so things go smooth.

> This would be the "official" reply from me, the KDE Coordinator. 
>Let me add some personal notes though: 
>You are complaining about a process that is tedioius and boring.. and 
>'annoying', yet, you are being paid for it. Why do you
>expect us at Arabeyes, as volunteers, to do this tedious process for you
>according to your own schedule? 

Because this tedious process is imposed on me by arabeyes not sync'ing KDE 
properly with scripts that are broken for a long time now. And I haven't got 
enough experience to fix the scripts NOW. At the same time arabeyes don't 
like any one to work on translation bypassing them even if they are busy and 
can't cope. In short, arabeyes cares more about doing the job through their 
channel whatever obstacles are there than to get a job done. 

>I mean, look, we all want a translated KDE. I personally appreciate KACST's
>attempts to contribute to Arabization (despite 
>the fact that is the opinion of Arabeyes that these efforts could be 
>channelled in a better way). 
>Yes, you are unhappy with our processes and procedures and yes, they may at
>times, become counter-productive and in the need for some serious and 
>critical review and improvement (just like my run-on sentences here ;). 
>In conclusion, like I have told you on IRC -- if you choose to suspend 
>KACST's translation, that is up to you and KACST. Otherwise, simply 
>translate what is available on Arabeyes' CVS and wait until I either get a
>full verified sync done or provide you with an alternative solution (a 
>cvs account on kde as per your request).

It's not my intention to suspend this project though I feel obligated not to 
waste KACST resources on our own technical issues.

-- 
Munzir Taha  PGP Key available
gpg --recv-keys --keyserver www.mandrakesecure.net F0671821

Telecommunications and Electronics Engineer
Mandrake Club Member
Maintainer of the Open Arabic Bugs Project at
http://wiki.arabeyes.org/OpenBugs
Maintainer of Fedora Arabic Translation Project
CIW Designer, ICDL, MOUS, Linux+, LPI 101
New Horizons CLC, Riyadh, SA

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