Re: Arabic Maintainership

[Sherif Abdelgawad <sabdelg at redhat dot com>]

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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.

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004, Mohammed Elzubeir wrote:

> Youcef is a member of the Arabeyes project, like many others, including
> myself. Arabeyes is involved in several projects, some of which are
> translations. We have evolved to have a certain model of doing this,
> which in my opinion, has been successful -- this is not to say that there
> isn't room for improvement (there's plenty of that).

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 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.
 
> Youcef has started this project (local to Arabeyes) upon receiving what
> was understood to be maintainership of the Arabic language translations for
> Fedora. This has been a misunderstanding, as Arabic was never assigned a
> maintainer. However, we have continued to work under that wrong
> impression. So, we have our CVS, project page, mailing-lists as well as QAC 
> to be followed by Fedora's Arabic translation (along with other translation 
> projects).

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

> The beauty of this is that other translators can seamlessly translate
> for Fedora, KDE, GNOME, Mandrake, Debian, etc. since they are all on the
> same CVS. Most don't, but several translators enjoy being able to work on
> more than one project without having to deal with the many projects systems
> individually. In other words, Arabeyes simplifies this process by creating
> a single-point of contact. We then worry about the sync'ing with the
> other projects' CVS repositories.

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
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.
 
> As I understand now, Fedora does accommodate to maintainers, but is still
> in its early stages of setting up for translations. In other words, some of
> the things that are wanted are still being worked on. I also understand
> that as long as there are no objections, Youcef can assume the role of
> maintainer. 

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

> I also understand that there are in fact objections. It is
> unfortunate that these objections are not made public. The only person who
> has publically made an objection was Sherif. His concern was "issues with
> the translations" and "issues with the way Arabeyes handles things". In
> other words, there are still no publically cited concrete reasons to back 
> these objections
>
> My question then is, what makes an objection justifiable for a rejection of
> an application to maintainership? Who are those other(s) people and what
> are there reasons? Are those reasons not work-able within the same
> framework that Youcef is implementing? 

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. 

 
> The problem here is that if Youcef is not granted maintainership of the Arabic
> translation, it becomes impossible for Arabeyes to fit it under its current
> framework. In other words, this would in effect force Arabeyes to drop
> the project. This would mean that the 7 current translators for the project,
> excluding Youcef himself (let alone the others who overflow from other
> translation projects from time to time) will not be able to contribute
> to Fedora's translations. We will be forced to re-assign them to other projects.

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
maintainership or else. Basically if some one is not in Arabeyes
should not contribute to Fedora Arabic translation? Fedora project
is public open source project I am not sure why anyone should
get exclusive maintainership. Basically the framework here will
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? 
 
> I apologize for the long emails, but I believe that explaining the
> background of Arabeyes's work methodology and Youcef's role in this can
> help others better understand why this is important.

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. 

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. 

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
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?

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.

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.

What I see that you have been helped and requests
for helpping release modules, access ..etc has
been granted. Last request for the 10 time
do not address "redhat employees" becase this is
an accusion which is not true.

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.

Thanks

Sherif

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