Saturday, September 22, 2007

My opinion about different options when translating OO.o

... is following:
  • Some people translate sdf-files with spreadsheet applications... brr..
  • Translation framework held up by Pavel Janik: it was the way to involve existing freeware translators to OO.o translation. It was very important to use their TM databases at starting point for many languages. As it is easy to use and quite flexible it is at moment a very good way for communities sharing translators with other teams.
  • Pootle - it is the best way to involve EVERYONE. Some teams don't want everyone. Me too. OO.o is a production level application already long time, there are printed books about OO.o in many languages, we should think twice before changing something in user interface. It needs strong administration etc. Anyways, it is a very good option too in many cases and the best feature is that Pootle can be used together with previous option.
  • Something for professional translators. I don't maybe fully understand what all this XLIFF etc. means, but I can understand that this may be important for so-said Sun-languages. I've never met any professional translator of my language personally, I've only seen some MSW and MSO translations and these make me sick (not only me, users too - these translations are subject of common fleering in our country). It is still for me unclear, how version control systems can handle XLIFF-format, as OLT output is packed to xlz-files and how readable is the changes output. Anyways, for my team this option is meaningless, as we don't have currently any people working with other formats except gettext one.
It's just my thoughts, I don't want to agitate someone. Maybe just we have to think not only 'what will be in future' but also 'what we have already'. And how to make it better.

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