Re: KDE arabic translation is about to be 100% but

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

On Yaum al-Khamees 11 Thu al-Qi`dah 1425 6:09 pm, Mohammed Elzubeir wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-12-23 at 19:39 +0300, Munzir Taha wrote:
> >
> > Our problem is that due to the lack of a timely proper sync and some
> > scripts deficiencies, we lost hundereds if not thousands of translated
> > strings on the
>
> Please don't dramatize things. Most of what you thought you lost was
> actually there.

I explained this in many threads before. No files would be removed with magic 
CVS, i know, but we lost time and resources translating many many files to 
discover they have already been already translated but removed to one of the 
folders attic's. I  hope this has been fixed with the latest fixes from Nadim 
to his script but no commit has been done so I can test.

> > past. We asked to have a direct access to the KDE repository but it's not
> > welcomed since the attitude here is to have one KDE maintainer that he
> > alone could commit the files. This is good as far as the KDE maintainer
> > is being
>
> Yes, this will continue to be the attitude. I have asked you if you
> wanted to take over the project as a whole and you said no. If you find
> someone who has more free time than I do, by all means, recommend them.

Elzubeir, this is wrong for sure. I actually asked/begged ;) you to take over 
the whole project for one month and finish the whole translation but you 
refused the idea of 'taking over for one month' explicitly.
(see: http://lists.arabeyes.org/archives/doc/2004/June/msg00178.html)

And though you agreed to look on KDE as a specific case, the story ended up by 
handling the maintainership to Mr. Isam Bayazidi. And with all my respect to 
you and Mr. Isam, unlike me were both busy that time.

<quote id="Elzubeir">
> Munzir, Arabeyes doesn't work that way. Each project has its own
> maintainer and so you cannot just "take over for a month" ;) However, in
> the case of KDE, our coordinator's activity is less than satisfactory,
> so unless he quickly responds, I would be more than happy to hand it
> over to you for a month. This however, would not apply to other
> projects.

  <quote id="Munzir">
  No problem, I just want to make a productive work and to make sure that 
  nothing will hinder the process.
  </quote>
</quote>


> > able to sync on time. This proves not possible with the Arabic language
> > maintainer due to him being extremely busy even just to do this a few
> > minutes
>
> We have well established that this is not a few minutes job, so please
> don't underestimate the task.

even after the fixes made by Nadim to the scripts?!

> > <quote>
> > 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.
> > </quote>
>
> Why am I being quoted out of context here? I continue to stand by my
> statement. It should be obvious to anyone that a volunteer is not held
> to the same schedule and deadline as a paid employee. Not sure why that
> is worth quoting.
>
> > For example the situation now is:
> > http://i18n.kde.org/stats/gui/KDE_3_3_BRANCH/ar/index.php
> > 65.41 % translated
> >
> > http://www.arabeyes.org/misc/kde_status_bar.html
> > http://www.arabeyes.org/project.php?proj=KDE
> > 93% translated
>
> So? There is currently a freeze and so I am not in a hurry to sync back
> to KDE.

But I told you we need this sync so we make sure it's 100% translated. If you 
are not in a hurry to sync back just tell me this on the mailing list so I 
try to find other solutions (like searching for Isam, ... and ask him to help 
with his account). You can say I can't make a sync before a month or two. But 
to say that I will make a sync tonight and let me wait for some days and post 
complaining messages without even replying to me is what forced me to post to 
KDE directly. If you won't fulfill your promises how come you expect me to 
make plans?

> > This is surely doesn't suit us as a professional governmental
> > organization that has deadlines and review cycles for each project.
>
> Mr. Obeid, a professionally initiated project should have a clear action
> plan with proper coordination with all concerned parties, _before_
> hiring people to do the work. Your project did not have a proper plan
> prior to its initiation.

Our only bottleneck in this process is the KDE maintainer ;). We have 
organized everything from our part but we simply can't adjust it with your 
own business. Any how, it won't be bad if you can post here your free time 
next year so I do my best in case we decide to cooperate again. Tell us which 
months on the next year you will have time to sync, please.

> > Now since we have almost finished the translation, I am not asking for a
> > cvs access. All I want is just someone (coolo?) to make a sync for us. I
> > can send him those files to commit them or he can grab them from arabeyes
> > until the Arabic KDE maintainer find time to do a sync.

> Anyhow, Thomas, if you are itching to perform this tedious task, by all
> means ;) However, I will have this done over the next couple days. Mr.
> Obeid, please note that this will likely be done around 7pm (Dubai
> time), since I will have to be in the office to do this (no net
> connection at home at the moment).

please do it as fast as possible. This is all I can say.

I would like to finish with this. All that is said is just a try to remedy a 
wrong situation. No one is perfect. Arabeyes has done and still doing great 
contribution to arabization. Elzubeir is a good guy who contributed a lot. 
Still I disagree sometimes completely with his way of handling things.

-- 
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
King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology.