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Re: KDE translation - a critical point



On Sun, 2004-11-28 at 19:43 +0300, Munzir Taha wrote:
> 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.
> 
> 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
> 

The situation is not half as bad as you make it sound. Please check
again. When I did the merge, what was on the KDE repository was indeed
updated in Arabeyes' CVS. 

Arabeyes' CVS:

----------------------------
revision 1.5
date: 2004/11/23 11:44:01;  author: elzubeir;  state: Exp;  lines: +2188
-3236
Sync'ing with KDE_3_3_BRANCH
----------------------------


Then, see what happened in KDE's CVS repository:

----------------------------
revision 1.115.2.17
date: 2004/11/26 05:26:22;  author: scripty;  state: Exp;  lines: +4 -4
CVS_SILENT made messages (.pot file committed)
----------------------------
revision 1.115.2.16
date: 2004/11/24 05:41:27;  author: scripty;  state: Exp;  lines: +780
-725
CVS_SILENT made messages (.pot file committed)
----------------------------
revision 1.115.2.15
date: 2004/11/23 05:24:04;  author: scripty;  state: Exp;  lines: +48
-48
CVS_SILENT made messages (.pot file committed)
----------------------------
revision 1.115.2.14
date: 2004/11/22 06:02:52;  author: scripty;  state: Exp;  lines: +36
-36
CVS_SILENT made messages (.pot file committed)
----------------------------

I'm only pasting the relevant parts of course. Our merge is with the
1.115.2.15 revision. This is very normal.

> 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.

You don't necessarily need to do that, but you can. Usually the changes
are minimal and a msgmerge will take care of the differences. 

> 
> Another example:
> 
> kdebase/kio_imap4 is 0% translated on arabeyes
> kdebase/kio_imap4 almost translated on KDE
> 

Yes, and guess what happened there? You removed the file apparently ;)

----------------------------
revision 1.28
date: 2004/11/22 13:17:20;  author: obeid;  state: dead;  lines: +0 -0
- Sync'ing with 3_3
----------------------------
revision 1.27
date: 2004/10/14 15:55:47;  author: elzubeir;  state: Exp;  lines: +43
-22
Sync'ing with KDE_3_3_BRANCH
----------------------------

Notice how it says 'state: dead'. That means you have removed it. Since
it was removed, when I did the sync for the second time after you, it
naturally copied the pot file, assuming there was never a .po version of
it.


> 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 
> 

Yup, I'm sure you did. You also removed it.

>
> [..]
>
> 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.

I can also go on explaining what you did wrong with the sync (I have no
idea how you managed to remove the file though). Other than instances
such as this, everything else is 'okay'. We are not at a 'critical'
point. Seriously, we are not.

> 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.
> 

Things will not go smoothly that way. It has nothing to do with
'Arabeyes' again. This is about KDE coordinators. Arabeyes as a project
(and core as its management team) will and should not dictate how I deal
with a project I maintain. I currently maintain KDE's Arabic translation
project and so things will be done under my supervision. 

For one, KDE administrators refused to create a user for 'arabeyes' on
their CVS server. Their rationale? There must be a single person to
blame for bad translations, etc. So, when I request for a CVS account
for you, it means that there is another person accessing KDE's CVS
directly. Quite frankly, seeing how you have dealt with our own CVS
server (removing files that should not have been removed), I'm not sure
having direct access to our files on KDE's CVS server is such a good
idea.

> Because this tedious process is imposed on me by arabeyes not sync'ing KDE 

Imposed by the KDE Coordinator.

> properly with scripts that are broken for a long time now. And I haven't got 

Actually, the script is not really broken. I submitted a PR (which you
have been Cc'ed on to add a feature to it).

> enough experience to fix the scripts NOW. At the same time arabeyes don't 

Yes, and had you submitted a PR when I have asked you to, most of this
would have been resolved by now. But, you chose to instead wait around
on IRC.. especially that you know I am not the author of the script (and
it's not written in a language I can modify).

> 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. 

Whatever.


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

I guess it is bad planning on starting such projects from KACST's side.
It's not like you are not aware of how we do things. If you want to
build a car, you don't just get some metal and rubber and create a car.
You first have to design it.

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

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