Re: Fedora and Translation Teams

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

On Yaum al-Sabt 08 Jumaada al-Awal 1425 10:04 am, Sherif Abdelgawad wrote:

First let me state it clear from the begining. I am a member of Arabeyes.org 
and proud of their work in general. I thank them a lot and believe they have 
done and continue doing a great job. However, I disagree with them sometimes 
in the way they deal with matters and hence recording my voice here.

> It is up to them, if they did not speak it is their problem.
> I am aware of at least 2 ppl objecting. Do not you think
> you better discuss how things should be and allow more
> somothely ppl to feel OK to join you rather than attacking?

Belive or not I don't have any contact with Mr Sherif and don't think I am one 
of these 2 ppl but you can count me as the #3 who records some objections. I 
feel this thread comes exactly at the right time ;)

> I also said I am not joing arabeyes team yet I standed to
> my right to contribute if I choose to. Fedora is an Open
> source project, it has the tools, the infrastructure
> and CVS. I do not need to be part of arabeyes if I need

Agree 100% that it should be a recommendation or at least ask the translation 
teams not to impose any restriction, whatsoever, on others translation. Read 
on...

> to so anything, or I must do that if that what you are
> refering to?

Yes, this in my opinion is a major problem.

> Again it is you who pushing things far 
> away and assume and over react. You exactly did the
> same thing the last time I tried to approach you guys.

Some days ago a very relevant discussion appeared here. I found very strange 
attitude towards our team work details.

Examples:
http://lists.arabeyes.org/archives/doc/2004/June/msg00192.html
It's mentioned that:
"I for one, again personally, don't like the setup that
is being discussed (not due to any personnel involvement), but I simply don't
think a reputable leading institute should engage in open source in this
manner...Its now in the open that these people will be paid workers (and that 
is good for all to know to avoid any dancing). "

I believe translation teams should be flexible on how other teams want to 
work. I shouldn't be forced to reveal whether I am paid or not though nothing 
bad about it at all. Though this is his personal opinion but as a core member 
it affects a lot. Let's see...

On
http://lists.arabeyes.org/archives/doc/2004/June/msg00184.html
It's also mentioned that:
"I think you need to state outright who these people are, what arrangements
have been made by whom and why, etc. The key is FULL transparency on all
issues - the more everyone knows, the more everyone is comfortable.  That
is the open source way and as noted, the main aspect of our existence is
"fostering a community""

I believe that if someone is only interested in translation not fostering your 
community, he should have the right to do it. To block/restrict others' 
translation becaue it doesn't help fostering your community is a type of .... 
Community could be built on love and peace not rules/restrictions.

On
http://lists.arabeyes.org/archives/doc/2004/June/msg00190.html
It's mentions that:
"The natural thing is to do it with the existing
translation team -- this is how it works with all projects we are
involved with. In this case, it happens to be Arabeyes. If someone wants
to say, you know what, KDE's translation is crap, we will re-do the
whole thing, there's nothing that can stop them. However, only Arabeyes'
translations will be part of the official KDE release. I am only
mentining KDE as an example, this would apply to all projects.... Arabeyes 
doesn't have a published mechanism of how to accept contributions from 
external institutes. We will hopefully come up with a scheme by the end of 
today's core meeting"

This shouldn't be the case at all. I should be able to contribute to any 
project I like if there are some restrictions applied to my contribution by 
whatever translation team. Again if arabeyes or any other translation team 
believes that only their translation would reach the specified project this 
would lead to serious problems regarding others who have problems with the 
basis of Arabeyes, and yes, Alan, sure there exist parties/persons with such 
issues.

Let's see now what's on the meeting. On
http://lists.arabeyes.org/archives/doc/2004/June/msg00210.html
Alzubeir mentions that:
"Although, after a long debate in core, there was a deadlock
(2 - 2) of whether we should make this mandatory."

By mandatory he meant to say forcing other teams to register individually with 
each one have a separate account and not allowing them to contribute as a 
team with one account if they are willing to do it so for their own reasons. 
I believe this right should not be in teams hands.


Finally, I  hope arabeyes would deal as expected with these message 
professionally and not count me as a wickid person.



-- 
Munzir Taha  PGP Key available
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Telecommunications and Electronics Engineer
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