Re: Fedora and Translation Teams

[Youcef Rabah Rahal <rahal at arabeyes dot org>]

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Behdad,

On Saturday 26 June 2004 22:02, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> Mohammad,
>
> Will all my respect for you and the Arabeyes project, but this
> thread is getting more and more frustrating.  First Yousef starts
> bombarding the list about what he has been misunderstanding for a
> very long time, and then you show up and keep doing the same
> thing.

No comment...

> I think it's important to understand that you are contributing to
> the Fedora project, and you *have to* play with their rules.
> It's not important to most of the people here that what is
> Arabeyes or how does it manage its tasks.

Behdad, are you ignoring all other posts from other translators from various 
languages, or ???

> I'm writing this, because I think the responses have been unfair
> to Red Hat here.  The little change they as the sponsors of the
> site did was that now people can lock the file they are
> translating, and any body can see that it only adds mutual
> exclusion to the system, which is much welcome, with almost no
> drawback; and you go on and elaborate on how this change breaks
> team work, consistency, management, Iraq war, Palestinian war,
> US/Iran relationship, blah blah blah...

It's not only the [Take]/[Release] mechanism that is being questioned. If this 
mechanism is used in an organized way, then OK. But, it's the policy of 
Fedora vis a vis new comers when there are already teams in place that's not 
clear.

I believe that new comers should be asked to join the current teams. If they 
don't want to, they should object publicly and give valid reasons. If they 
say the maintainer in place is not good, they should also object publicly and 
give valid reasons ('usually' people are put in jail after a trial in which 
accusators and witnesses are _not anonymous_, and for 'valid' reasons). BTW, 
I am not aware of any case where a team rejected a new translator from 
joining. On the contrary, translation teams are usually in dire need for 
help, and that's due essentially to the fact that translation is intrinsicly 
difficult (and partly 'boring').

So, that is the main problem. And it's not specific to Arabic. This issue 
rouse after the answers to many posts after the announcement of the new 
system. There have been disclaimers, right. Then, it would be good to know 
what is/will be the _official_ policy of Fedora for this issue ??? Also, who 
does take such decisions ? When ? Who makes the choice for languages 
maintainership ?

> I don't like this attitude :(.

Well. We are concerned about the framework in which we'll translate if we are 
to continue to translate. There have been/is a big problem for the Arabic 
maintainership, OK. But as long as the policy keeps to be as unclear as it is 
now, as long as the new framework is being implemented without taking 
considertion of what other Translation Projects successfully did, I have a 
feeling this will happen again with other languages in the future and will 
keep alienating people who have been translating for a long time.

What we are asking for are clear answers to those important questions. And if 
possible, in an 'official' way (rather than an answer with a disclaimer and 
with 'IMOs'). Such answers will definitely close the debate rather then 
seeing this thread degenerating more and more. Enough precious time (for all 
the parties) has been lost.

> behdad (who do not speak Arabic;)

Regards,

- -- 
Youcef R. Rahal
Arabeyes.org
http://www.arabeyes.org/~rahal
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