Re: KDE translation - a critical point

[<munzirtaha at newhorizons dot com dot sa>]

On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 15:03:30 +0400
 Mohammed Elzubeir

wrote: >On Sun, 2004-11-28 at 13:10 +0300, >munzirtaha at newhorizons dot com dot sa wrote: >> was always hanging on IRC with Mr. Elzubeir to resolve >>those issues. > >That's unfortunate. However, currently, I am not aware of >any files that >are on Arabeyes' CVS but are _not_ in KDE's. You are >probably comparing >the wrong things. There are, however, files that are in >KDE's CVS but >not in Arabeyes'. 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 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. Another example kdebase/kio_imap4 is 0% translated on arabeyes kdebase/kio_imap4 almost translated on KDE 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; Another example /kdebase/kwin_default_config.po A file that's already been translated and uploaded via arabeyes to KDE and now it's OK on KDE but 0% translated on arabeyes. Maybe those files are not big but this is just to prove the point. After a week of tracing these things, still we are losing our translations. 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. >Right. You are being paid to do a job and so 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. >> I decided to put an end to this delimma and asked Mr. >>Elzubeir >> politely to resovle those issues or give me a direct >>access to KDE >> repository for two weeks only to try to catch up. He >>promised to reply >> to me today. I was hanging on IRC all day now but can't >>see kuru >> there. Hope he is OK. I have to make a decision today >>whether to > >I am fine, but I am also extremely busy at work. I am >taking time to >write this so you know I am well aware of the situation >and am working >to resolve it. I have requested if a CVS account for >Arabeyes could be >made (e.g. 'arabeyes' user) for KDE's CVS. I by no means >have any plans >to give you (or anyone else for that matter) my own >user/pass on KDE's >cvs server. 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. >This would be the "official" reply from me, the KDE >Coordinator. > >Let me add some personal notes though: > >You are complaining about a process that is tedioius and >boring.. and >'annoying', yet, you are being paid for it. Why do you >expect us at >Arabeyes, as volunteers, to do this tedious process for >you according to >your own schedule? Because this tedious process is imposed on me by arabeyes not sync'ing KDE properly with scripts that are broken for a long time now. And I haven't got enough experience to fix the scripts NOW. At the same time arabeyes don't 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. >I mean, look, we all want a translated KDE. I personally >appreciate >KACST's attempts to contribute to Arabization (despite >the fact that is >the opinion of Arabeyes that these efforts could be >channelled in a >better way). > >Yes, you are unhappy with our processes and procedures >and yes, they may >at times, become counter-productive and in the need for >some serious and >critical review and improvement (just like my run-on >sentences here ;). >In conclusion, like I have told you on IRC -- if you >choose to suspend >KACST's translation, that is up to you and KACST. >Otherwise, simply >translate what is available on Arabeyes' CVS and wait >until I either get >a full verified sync done or provide you with an >alternative solution (a >cvs account on kde as per your request). It's not my intention to suspend this project though I feel obligated not to waste KACST resources on our own technical issues. -- 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 New Horizons CLC, Riyadh, SA