As Jono has been mentioning recently, one of the projects we’re working on the translations community this cycle are Translations Stories.

We’d like to show how translations change people’s lives for the best, and how the work of translators has an impact on that. We’d like to share our excitement and highlight the awesome work translators do, and we thought that articles with translations stories would be the perfect vehicle for that.

In order to achieve this, we need your help. You don’t have to be a translator for this: you only need a few spare hours and be willing to give back to the project contributing on this effort to raise awareness on translations.

So, without further ado, here’s how:

Contribute

Do you want to submit a story to let everyone know about the fantastic work the translation team in your language is doing? Well, that’s easy!

• Sign up. Sign up for writing a translations story on this wiki page by adding your name to the list there.
• Research. Think about what you want to write, and get some information. The Get inspired section below (or here) should give you a few pointers to get you started.
• Write a Story. Write a short article highlighting an area of your choice related to translations. Don’t forget to add a picture!
• Send the Story. Send me your story (david (DOT) planella (AT) ubuntu (DOT) com) adding the word [STORY] to the e-mail’s subject. I’ll then take care of publishing it to Ubuntu News, Ubuntu Planet and to the translators Facebook page.

Get inspired

Here are some ideas about what you can write about:

• Schools with Ubuntu in your language: Check out the schools using Ubuntu in your language. Get in touch with them to get more information and write how they are using Ubuntu.
• Translation Jams: Did you run a translation jam during the UbuntuGlobalJam or at any other time? Tell us how it went!
• Statistics: Did your team had a whooping increase in translation coverage since the last release? Tell us how you dit it and promote some healthy competition among teams.
• Interviews: Interview and tell us about people being able to use Ubuntu in their language
• Workflow: Are you particularly proud about your successful translation workflow and would like to show it to other teams? Write an article and let everyone know!
• Be creative: There are lots more of other subjects or areas where we can highlight the work of translators and their impact on people’s lives. Use your imagination as a source for stories!

Stay tuned for more news on this effort. We’ll soon be publishing some guidelines on how to write good translations stories to help you making them even more awesome.

Are you going to be the first to send one? Looking forward to reading them!

Picture: A tsig mit zibn tsigelekh by Center for Jewish History – No known copyright restrictions

Once again, the unstoppable Catalan team demonstrate their drive and capacity in event organization and Free Software advocacy.

Last 20th of November, pursuing the lofty “hey, one install party is not enough” goal and organized by Vicent Cubells and Josep Martínez, the team pulled yet a second Ubuntu Maverick install party. This time round it was in the beautiful city of València, and in an emblematic location as well: the Ca Revolta center – which is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary.

Several Ubuntu installations were performed throughout the day, either in parallel to Windows or wiping it out completely at the user’s request. Technical support was also offered to anyone who came by, which in some cases required a big dose of genius and willingness to be confronted with -back in the day- state of the art technology, such as psychedelic laptop screens and the likes.

All in all, a fantastic event: everyone went back home satisfied, enjoying the new freedom of their shiny Ubuntu systems.

Big thanks to everyone who participated, and see you at the next one soon!

You can also read this post in Catalan.

Pictures by Vicent Cubells

?

It’s less than a week before the Ubuntu Developer Summit kicks off in Orlando, Florida, from the 25th-29th Oct, and everyone is getting ready to plan all the sessions and put all of the pieces in place for what will be once more an amazing schedule for an exciting development cycle: Ubuntu 11.04, the Natty Narwhal.

As usual, we’re going to have a solid representation of Ubuntu Translations, and I’d like to take the opportunity to let you know bit more about the sessions we’ve got in store for this UDS.

Main Sessions

These will constitute the roadmap for next cycle, and were based on the great feedback from community members during the call for proposals for the Ubuntu 11.04 Translations Plans.

Everyone should feel welcome to participate in the discussions and collaborate in completing these goals.

Ubuntu Translations Portal

A web portal to unify all the available content on Ubuntu translations such as stories, announcements, language teams, documentation, etc. (read more…)

Language Pack Updates Schedule

A clear policy on language pack updates for stable releases, stating for which releases and when they will be published. (read more…)

Translations Stories

A coordinated effort to publish stories about the work of translation teams throughout the cycle. (read more…)

Introductory Video to Ubuntu Translations

Production of an introductory video on Ubuntu translations, which will ultimately appear on the Translations Portal. (read more…)

Translations Training Sessions

A set of translations training sessions to help new translators getting started using Launchpad Translations and contributing to Ubuntu. (read more…)

Additional Sessions

Translatable Ubuntu Code of Conduct and Leadership Code of Conduct

We want to provide the Code of Conduct (CoC) and the Leadership Code of Conduct (LCoC) in anyone’s own language, and we want to enable the community to translate it. (read more…)

Internationalization of Launchpad Answers

We’d like to have an open discussion about the scope of work and the steps involved in enabling internationalization and localization of the Launchpad Answers application’s web UI. (read more…)

Roundtables

Ubuntu Translations Community Roundtable

A roundtable to discuss anything related to the Ubuntu Translations community, and to Launchpad Translations as a tool. (read more…)

How to participate

• Go to the blueprint. Click on the session you’re interested in, either in this overview (using the read more.. links) or in the UDS schedule. This will take you to the blueprint in Launchpad.
• Subscribe to it. Subscribe to the blueprint, optionally ticking the “Participation essential” checkbox.
• Add feedback. If you like, add feedback to the blueprint’s whiteboard.
• Join in! Remember that if you are participating remotely, there’s IRC projected in all rooms and sound is streamed, so you can interact with those in the session. Check out the remote participation documentation for detailed instructions on how to participate from home or anywhere else.

Looking forward to seeing everyone next week!

?

Translations Awesomeness

As you all know the Meerkat is out.

After the release frenzy, I’d like to take a step back and use the opportunity to thank the people from the part of the community that’s closer to me: translators.

For those not familiar with them, they are a vital piece of the diverse group of individuals that bring Ubuntu to millions: they enable almost everyone to use Ubuntu in their own language. With every release they manage to organize, coordinate and perform the translation effort for the applications that are part of our Operating System.

We’ve got more than 1600 translatable applications for Ubuntu in Launchpad, and believe me, translating even the set of most visible ones is an incredible achievement. Not to forget the effort of upstream translation teams, the work of which is also reflected in Ubuntu.

All in all, the end result is something to be truly proud of.

This Cycle’s Hall of Fame

Special mention this time goes to the Spanish, Galician, English (United Kingdom), Brazilian Portuguese, Turkish and German teams, who have achieved 100% translation status according to the statistics at release time. If you see anyone from these teams around, give them a big hug.

A total of 37 languages reached what we consider a full translation in Ubuntu 10.10, with many more being close to that figure.

The Galician team, in 2nd place this time, has managed to beat the living daylights out of all languages in the Iberian Peninsula apart from Spanish. In comparison to them, we Catalan ranked 15. Congratulations! But next time it’s personal

And the Turkish team has been working very hard in the last two cycles to make it to the top: in Lucid they already sprang from the 27th to the 7th position in terms of translation coverage of all Ubuntu translations in Launchpad. Well done, you’ve done a spectacular job.

Translators: thanks for your awesome work, you rock!

You Rock! image by IAN RANSLEY DESIGN + ILLUSTRATION

In the Community team at Canonical we are already turning the engines to start laying out the plans for the 11.04 roadmap for translations.

For this, we really value your input and would very much like to take your ideas and feedback into account. Remember that this is about the translations community itself, it is not about requesting new features for Launchpad Translations.

If you’d like to participate and contribute in making our translations community even more awesome, you can do it very easily in any of these ways:

• Comment. Leave a comment on this post with your thoughts
• Discuss. Join the discussion on this thread in the Ubuntu Translators list
• Propose. Add your proposal directly here:
  • https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/Roadmaps/11.04

For instance, one of the key areas I’d like to work on in this cycle is outreach: we want to bang the drum and get people excited and involved in translations.

What are your thoughts and ideas? What do you think we should focus on?

Thanks!

Wow, our ever amazing community has done it again. Since last time I looked at the LoCo directory, the number of teams participating in the Ubuntu Global Jam has nearly doubled.

There is still time to organise new events and join the fun next weekend – a great opportunity to meet your old and new Ubuntu friends and help improve Ubuntu.

So here’s the question, is your country or area represented in there? Let your region also make the difference by adding your event.

See you there!

Getting ready for the Jam

It’s less than two weeks before our ever amazing community joins around the globe to have a good time while improving the incoming Ubuntu release, 10.10, codenamed the Maverick Meerkat.

The Ubuntu Global Jam is a great opportunity to contribute to your favourite OS in any area you can participate in. There are plenty of proposed activities, such as Bugs, Testing, Upgrade, Documentation, Translations, Packaging, but it does not have to stop at that. Why not propose your own activities, or run meetings related to them? Marketing, advocacy… your imagination is the limit.

We want to hear about your events!

So far there are already 14 teams registered at the LoCo Directory for the Ubuntu Global Jam. It would be really cool to have a representation from as many LoCos as possible, so if you are still thinking about running a jam, or if you haven’t added your event, why not go for it? There is still time!

Adding a new Ubuntu Global Jam event in the LoCo Directory is really easy: it should not take you more than two minutes to do it, it will give more visibility to your LoCo, help people find a jam near them, and assist you with the planning.

Here’s how you can add your Global Jam event:

1. Go to loco.ubuntu.com – Go to the Ubuntu Global Jam event in the LoCo Directory
2. Log in – If you already haven’t, log in to the LoCo Directory with your Launchpad ID
3. Add the event – Add your team’s event

That’s it, you’re now part of the rocking list of LoCos running an Ubuntu Global Jam .

I’m sure it’s going to be once more an awesome event. Don’t forget to show off how your team is rocking by taking pictures and telling everyone about it. We’d like to hear as many fun stories about the Ubuntu Global Jam as possible!

See you at the Jam!

After running the Ubuntu Translation Teams Healthcheck I took it to heart to help translation teams in the areas they asked for assistance in the survey.

One of the teams that had a need in a particular area was the Ubuntu Hebrew translation team. In their own words:

“We don’t get much feedback, to be exact, we need to beg the users for feedback, once in every few months someone is kind enough to tell us that there is a translation mistake [...]“

In short, the team needs your feedback. Whether it is to tell them there are translations that need improvement, or whether it is simply to commend or support them in the awesome work they do translating Ubuntu, they’ll be very happy to hear from you.

So, do you use Ubuntu in Hebrew? Do you want to help? There are many different ways you can support Ubuntu in your language. Pick one or more of them!

• Give feedback on the current state of Hebrew translations on the Ubuntu Israel translation forum.
• Join the Hebrew translation team in Launchpad
• Report a bug in Hebrew translations (spelling mistake, missing translations, etc.) on the Ubuntu Translations project in Launchpad

With your help the Hebrew team can reach excellent language support for all their users. What are you waiting for? Give them a hand!

(And here in Hebrew. Ddorda tells me it’s readable, although some bits might sound weird, so beware of the Google automatic translation!)

?I’m pleased to announce that Ubuntu Maverick is now open for translation:

Remember that according to the release schedule translatable messages might be subject to change until the User Interface Freeze on the 26th of August.

During the Maverick development cycle, language packs containing the translations are generally released twice per week. This way you can see and test the results of the translations more frequently.

That’s it, happy translating!

Do you have any questions about translating Ubuntu? – Ask! – Did you find a bug in translations?  Report it!

Some weeks ago I ran the Ubuntu Translation teams healthcheck survey. The main goal was getting in touch with the teams to have some feedback on how they were doing, if they needed help in any particular area and make sure that they were aware of the latest changes in translation policies. While the results were available on the wiki, I hadn’t had a chance to post a summary.

Here it is.

Language info

Participation. Up to 71 teams participated in the survey. Of these, 58 submitted the input and explicitly agreed to have it published online. This summary represents the input from the following teams:

Persian, Welsh, Manx, Armenian, Punjabi, Bulgarian, Telugu, Portuguese, Dhivehi, Asturian, Belarusian, Hebrew, Icelandic, Macedonian, German, Irish, Kazakh, Norwegian, Afar, Gujarati, Spanish, Hungarian, Sinhala, Arabic, Northern Sotho, Japanese, Finnish, Maori, Greek, Shuswap, Frisian, Tamil, Korean, Estonian, Lojban, Lithuanian, Silesian, Occitan, Ukrainian, Simplified Chinese, Tibetan, Low German, Brazilian, Russian, Dutch, Catalan, French, Khmer, Luxembourgish, Galician, Traditional Chinese (Taiwan), Basque, Slovenian, Uyghur, Swedish, Danish, Italian, Romanian

Active translators. On the question of how many active translators a team has, the average is about 12 Launchpad team members or regular translators, with another average of 20 occasional or drive-by translators.

This seems to validate the model of having a small team of reviewers who can submit and review translations and a bigger group of translators submitting translation suggestions, as well as also confirm the migration in the last cycles to smaller, more manageable moderated teams, focusing on translation quality assurance.

Natural language usability. On the three categories, we seem to be in good shape.

While we’re doing excellent-good in fonts and input method, the interesting bit will be to focus on converting that good-average to excellent-good in applications. One thing to have into account when evaluating fonts and input method though, is that many languages do not need an input method or are nowadays not in need of a set of fonts to correctly display text. So here the challenge will be to concentrate on the languages rated as average and poor to see the areas in which this rating can be improved.

This information is also very useful to me in a per-language basis to see the perception of how usable Ubuntu in a particular language is comparing it to translation coverage statistics.

Translation team policies

Translation policies. While in more than half of the responses translation team coordinators were aware of the new Ubuntu Translations policies, there are still quite some teams who did not know about them. I’ll take an action to send a reminder explaining the new policies.

Ubuntu translators mailing list subscription. We’re now asking all translation team coordinators to be subscribed to the Ubuntu translators mailing list, and it seems that the majority are. Some of the people who said they were not subscribed did it just after participating in the survey. I’ll follow this up with the rest who aren’t on the list, but the most important part is to make sure new team coordinators are aware of the need to be subscribed to follow all Ubuntu translations announcements and forward them to their teams when necessary.

Team membership. The vast majority of teams have now a moderated team membership, which allows them to have more oversight on translation quality. There are still a handful of open teams, which I’ll be trying to help migrating to a moderate membership.

Launchpad team page information. Nearly all teams represented in the survey had up to date information on their Launchpad page, which should be the entry point for translators wanting to translate Ubuntu in their language. Having clear and useful information there is a step that should not take more than a few minutes, but it is extremely important to make the process of joining translation teams easier and thus to get more help in the effort of translating Ubuntu in your own language.

Communication channel.

Mailing lists, be it on ubuntu.com, on launchpad.net or externally, are the main communication method for translation coordination. We generally recommend using lists at ubuntu.com, as Launchpad mailing lists only allow subscription for team members, which for translation teams exclude occasional, non-member, translators.

The important point for me here is that nowadays nearly all translation teams use some form of communication for successful translation coordination.

From the additional comments, other methods were direct e-mail, face to face meetings, instant messaging, regular IRC meetings and wikis.?

Translation guidelines. While many teams do have guidelines, there is still a 30% of them who haven’t, so I see this as an area that needs improvement. I believe translation guidelines are one of the most basic tools for a successful translation process, and each team, be it new or already established, should have some. Guidelines can cointain glossaries on how to translate common software-related terms, grammar rules or conventions specific to the language and translation of free software – or anything that can help in achieving consistency, resolving doubts and making the translation process more effective. IRC meetings, jams or any other events are generally useful to start developing guidelines.

Our wiki page on guidelines contains some very useful information and good examples from teams using them.

Translation team workflow

Translation bug tracking. The majority of teams use their mailing lists or forums to track translation problems and fix them, but there is still a considerable amount using Launchpad to track translation bugs, and to a lesser extent, external bug trackers.

The point risen here was that the important part was getting actual feedback from users about the problems, and some teams are struggling with this.

Accepting new team members. As a result of most teams being now moderated, the common practice in accepting team members is them asking to join the team, team members reviewing the application and then accepting them.

The thoroughness of the process varies across teams. Some have requirements on new members to have signed the CoC, having a minimum of karma, submitting the application to vote, or some others have a more relaxed process.

Another practice that some teams tend to follow is to have the main team acting as a small set of reviewers who can accept suggestions and a separate, bigger team that anyone can join. This way occasional or new translators can still submit suggestions as usual, but can also have a feeling of being part of the team.

Translation events. That’s another area for development, as the majority of teams don’t seem to be running any translation events. Translation events, either on IRC, or face to face (e.g. a translation jam) are extremely useful for focusing on particular translation goals and getting together to achieving them. Being all together at the same place makes the process much more agile, as reviews can happen instantly, and doubts can also be discussed straight away. We will need to better raise awareness on translation jams, either occasional ones or during the Ubuntu Global Jam.

Translation review process.

Here most of the teams seem to use the Launchpad Translations online interface and take advantage of the more agile translation and review process, either just translating and simply fixing errors when they are found, or through an explicit review process after finishing each translation.

Upstream coordination. That was for me one of the most interesting areas of the survey, and I’m quite pleased to see the results.

They show that nowadays most of the Ubuntu translation teams actively coordinate with upstream projects. Using a mixture seems to be the most popular choice: indistinctively translating upstream or in Launchpad. The next most popular approach is translating first upstream and then completing Ubuntu-specific translations in Launchpad.

There are still a few teams who are not working with upstream, and we’ll have to see what the best approach for them to contribute back is. Another interesting trend are those teams translating everything in Launchpad first and then sending it upstream. They tend to be the same translators both upstream teams and in Ubuntu, and they effectively use the best of both worlds: the best online translation interface for open source software combined with sending translations upstream to make them available to all other projects.

Final thoughts

It would have been interesting to compare results with previous data from a couple of cycles ago, but having been part of it for a long time now, my feeling is that the Ubuntu Translations community is developing in the right direction, and I hope that this survey also serves as a testimonial to show external translation communities how Ubuntu translators work. The points about the importance of a defined workflow, team communication, quality assurance and upstream coordination are most definitely getting across.

Some areas in which we’ll have to concentrate is seeing how we can help those teams that are or have become inactive, better communicate the Ubuntu translation policies and work with the teams who don’t have translation guidelines to start developing some. I will also go back to the teams who explicitly asked for help in particular areas.

This has also offered me an invaluable insight on each team and their current situation and workflow, which will help me working with them in the future.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to complete it, as the input has been very valuable to know more about the Ubuntu translations community.? You allow millions of users to use Ubuntu in their own language every day, and you truly rock.

It might not come as a surprise to you that I start saying that translations are important.

Why translations

Translations are a key part of the Ubuntu community, with deep roots in our Ubuntu philosophy. For many users having an operating system in their language is the only way they’ll be able to use it (*), so it is just natural that we support this and provide tools to lower the barrier to community translations. Others might be proficient in English and be able to use Ubuntu without natural language support, but still choose to work with it in their language.

Languages are not only a vehicle for communication, but can mean a lot of things: identity, culture, evolution, creativity…  there is a long list of values that drive translators to do their work and users to have Ubuntu speak their own language, other than just the accessibility aspect.

Ubuntu translators and those from other projects it includes bring a localized system to millions, and that’s easily said than done. Release after release, a tireless community of volunteer enthusiasts set upon translating the thousands of strings that are part of the operating system and deliver Ubuntu localized in their language.

We want more!

I think this work is just awesome, and I think everyone should get to know about this effort, which does not only enable more people to use Ubuntu, but also makes possible such other amazing stories as keeping an indigenous language alive in our digital age or being the only operating system available in a particular language.

In short, I’d like to hear more about translation teams and the work that they do. I know that many translators blog regularly about their work in their local languages, and I think it would be awesome to translate part of these posts and blog them on Planet Ubuntu to let our global community to know more about translations. It’s not only about raising awareness, but also growing and building a strong and active community.

We’ve already kicked off a series of Translations Interviews, but I’d like to ask translators to blog more on the Planet, tweet/dent about what you and your team is doing and basically spread the word. Translation jams, translation status, areas where help is needed, what you like or don’t like about working with Launchpad Translations, or even explaining a bit more about your language… there is a whole range of interesting topics to talk about.

So, who wants to be the first?

(*) For those who’ve never had to use language support, like trying new things and would like to see what it is like for a user who does not speak English to use a system in a foreign language, here’s an experiment you can try: go to System > Administration > Language Support, then Install/Remove languages…, then scroll down to Simplified Chinese, tick the Installed checkbox and then the Apply Changes button. Once the language support is installed, drag and drop any of the Chinese language options in the list so that it is above the English entry. Then log out, lag back in and while doing that choose the language you’ve just installed, and try to play with the system

?Hi all,

It’s translations announcements day today!

We’ve got some more content that would be very interesting for LoCos to have translated. Check this out:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoCouncil/LoCoTeamsBestPracticesandGuidelines

The Ubuntu LoCo Council developed a series of best practices and guidelines to help all LoCos to be more successful, and it would be awesome to have it in YOUR language to allow everyone contribute making your LoCo rock even harder.

Here’s how you can help:

• Add your language and a link to the page where you want to put the translation to the table on top of   https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoCouncil/LoCoTeamsBestPracticesandGuidelines. I’ve added some few languages already for your convenience, and some folks have even already started translating!
• I recommend creating a subpage named after the two-letter or threee-letter code for your language (e.g. LoCoTeamsBestPracticesandGuidelines/de for German). You’ll find a list of codes here.
• Copy the content of the page in English to your new page
• Translate!
• Save your translation and you’re done

Check out the Spanish or Italian translations for an example:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoCouncil/LoCoTeamsBestPracticesandGuidelines/es
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoCouncil/LoCoTeamsBestPracticesandGuidelines/it

Thanks!

Hi all,

The Loco Directory hackers have asked for some more help in getting the directory translated and thus more usable for your Ubuntu LoCo.

You can contribute to it the usual way by going to:

https://translations.launchpad.net/loco-directory

And leaving your suggestions or translations there.

We’ve got 7 languages which are nearly completed, and it would really be awesome if also Catalan, Finnish, French, Czech, Asturian, Serbian, Bengali, Greek, Ukrainian, Russian, Romanian, English (United Kingdom), Dutch, Swedish, Galician, Hebrew, Chinese (Traditional), Chinese (Simplified), Vietnamese, Irish, Thai, Arabic, Tamil, Turkish, Welsh, Portuguese, Slovak, Polish, Persian, Danish, Belarusian, and more! would get some translation love.

The LoCo Directory has continuous releases, although there are generally not big string changes, so remember to check it out and translate new strings from time to time.

Thanks!

Last weekend the Catalan LoCo team reunited again to celebrate yet another unforgettable Ubuntu release party in València, at the emblematic Octubre Culture Centre in the heart of the city.

They were two days packed with activities, presentations, conferences, unconferences, installs, excellent food and even better company. In summary, good fun for everyone, of which here’s just a taste:

Day 0: Friday – the ubuntaires are coming

As most of the LoCo team members come from different parts of the Catalonia region, they were traveling on Friday to be fresh for the big day on Saturday. Be it with car, train or motorbike, everyone had arrived by the evening and some of us met for a nice  dinner and enjoyed the warm Valencian night.

Apart from seeing the crew again, the highlight for me was to finally meet the great Cubells and Giorgio in person, with whom I collaborate online, but never had the chance to hang out with yet.

Day 1: Saturday – octubre, install, conferences, random number generators, 61

The first day started early in the morning, and those who managed to wake up soon enough were able to leave their testimonial in the early bird photo. The first thing we all contemplated in awe was the venue:

The current building is a reform from the 1879 original, and the adaptation in 2004 nicely marries the contemporary needs with the original style. The Centre itself and the organizations it is home to are a reference when talking about culture in the Valencian Community, and I think I can speak for the whole team in thanking Vicent Cubells for making the Lucid release party in L’octubre possible.

Moving on to more geeky matters, the party kicked off with Alex‘s presentation and the Maverick UDS video, with obligatory cheer when the picture with the Catalan team was featured. After that, workshops, presentations and the install party were ready to roll, many of them running in parallel.

Later lunch, short break, back to more awesome sessions and a final draw in which number 61 was repeatedly featured in our “random” number generator. Then fast forward to a well-deserved after work beer, a nice dinner in the city, some er… hacking, and last drinks.

Day 2: Sunday – unconference, ???, cava

As it is to expect with a Sunday morning, the last day started slower than the first, but Alex and Rafael managed to quickly sort that out by energizing everyone with cool topics for the unconference, to which people responded equally well volunteering for presentations.

While all interesting, the ones I would personally highlight were the ones from Josep Gallart, in which he explained the golden ratio applied to photography, and the session on Tai Chi at the terrace by Rafael Carreras, which constituted a very nice and pleasant finale.

Following that, we all went for dinner, enjoyed good food at L’octubre once more and were kindly invited to cava by Giorgio’s parents. That marked the closure of the event, after which people started the long journey back home, thinking already on how to make the next release party even more awesome.

Everything was very well documented by our very own reporters, and it seems that everyone took pictures, pictures, pictures, pictures, pictures and pictures.

Thanks to everyone and see you all soon!

UPDATE: I forgot to add that you can also read a report in Catalan from Sisco’s blog post

The pictures in this post are Copyright (c) 2010 all rights reserved to crazyserver, Copyright (c) 2008 all rights reserved octubre and

Engines are warming up for the next Ubuntu Developer Summit next week in Brussels, and on the Community track we’ve got a rich set of sessions to discuss a lot of topics around Translations. These will help shaping up the roadmap for the next version of Ubuntu, the Maverick Meerkat.

We discussed the sessions in the last translations meeting and they have now all been scheduled. You can also see the overview on the wiki, although they will all be tracked from the linked blueprints. Here they are:

1. Translations community roundtable
   • Unstructured session to discuss and gather feedback on all around the Ubuntu translations community
     • Proposed topic: QA of language packs (GaborKelemen) – asking translators to test each updated package before release may be too much. With on-demand updates, it may be unnecessary to withhold untested updates.
2. Launchpad Translations roundtable
   • Unstructured session to discuss and gather feedback on all around Launchpad Translations as a tool
3. Desktop and Translations roundtable
   • Roundtable with members of the desktop team to discuss everything related to translations. Proposed topics:
     • Overview of Launchpad Translations changes in Maverick: automatic generation of translation templates, import of translations from upstream bzr branches and translation sharing. This will also be explained in a plenary.
     • Implementing gettext support to PolicyKit
     • Firefox and OpenOffice.org translations
     • Common approach for building POT template on non-desktop packages using plain gettext instead of intltool, e.g. mountall, in the same way as CDBS GNOME packages use langpack.mk
     • Could langpack-o-matic build the translated XML files for documentation to be shipped in language packs? Even if we cannot get it to build for all packages, even if only for ubuntu-docs would be a big improvement.
     • Enabling keyboard indicator applet by default on users with a non-Latin alphabet keyboard layout (see bug 550704)?
     • Evaluate the use of mlterm instead of VTE for RTL locales?
4. Kubuntu Translations roundtable
   • Unstructured session to discuss and gather feedback on all around Kubuntu translations.
5. Translations Community Advocacy
   • Session to discuss how to rise awareness on the global Ubuntu Translations community, both within and outside the Ubuntu community.
6. Translations Community Learning Content
   • Session to discuss ways of providing content to ease start contributing to translations.
7. Translations Community Events
   • Discuss a series of events throughout the cycle to help promoting the Ubuntu Translations project and increase participation in translating Ubuntu.
8. Extend the translations reporting site
   • Continuation of the Lucid blueprint on how to improve how we report translation status for Ubuntu
9. Translation teams health check
   • A session on an effort to get in touch with all of the translations teams for a health check. Make sure to understand their needs and if they need help in any area. Raise awareness on the new team policies, especially on having information on the team’s communication channel on their Launchpad page, along with info on how to join the team.
10. Launchpad Translations Reporting API
    • Discuss the current status and implementation of the Launchpad Translations reporting API, as per the specification Adi is working on.
11. Developer education on localization
    • Get feedback on the creation of a resource with developer reference on localization, extending the internationalization guide.
12. Universe is translatable in Launchpad
    • Session to assess if it’s desirable to make all localized applications from universe also translatable in Launchpad, not only those from the main repository.
    • Previous spec
13. Improve Translations Packaging for Help in Ubuntu Applications
    • Development of a strategy to provide translatable documentation for Ubuntu applications.
    • This will also allow OEM projects to use documentation and its translations from Ubuntu, installed independently from the monolithic ubuntu-docs package.
    • Ideally the translated documentation should be shipped in language packs.
14. Proactive bug detection
    • Discuss the possibilities of proactive bug detection: this would need more and earlier testing of packages for translation problems (lack of i18n infrastructure, untranslatable files/strings, needs-pot-on-build, needs-desktop-entry-i18n…)
    • We also need to devote more manpower to fix bugs in time, and reducing the average lifespan of bugs. Goal: 0 translation bugs at release time
    • Rejecting string changing uploads that do not close a string exception tagged bug? (TimoJyrinki)
15. Fixed schedule for translation updates
    • Predictable translation updates could help scheduling work
    • Not only language packs, but DDTP, (k)ubuntu-docs, and whatnot too
    • Perhaps we could introduce on-demand updates, so that a language can get an update when it needs it the most
    • “Supported release” should mean not only security fixes, but translation updates too!
16. Creating a localized help.ubuntu.com
    • help.ubuntu.com should detect my browsers locale settings and show the content on my language
    • Asking teams to create localized versions of that site makes no sense: we duplicate the infrastructure and the work to maintain it for nothing.
17. Improving communication with translators in Launchpad
    • (From the Ubuntu Manual Team)

How to participate

• Go to the blueprint. Click on the session you’re interested in, either in this overview or in the UDS schedule. This will take you to the blueprint in Launchpad.
• Subscribe to it. Subscribe to the blueprint, optionally ticking the “Participation essential” checkbox.
• Add feedback. If you like, add feedback to the blueprint’s whiteboard.
• Join in! Remember that if you are participating remotely, there’s IRC projected in all rooms and sound is streamed, so you can interact with those in the session. Check out Jorge’s Ubuntu Open Week IRC session next Friday at 18:00 UTC on #ubuntu-classroom

??I’ve been working with Laura Czajkowski to set up the main LoCo Council page for translations on the wiki, and I’m pleased to announce that you can start translating it to your own language, so that it is also useful for everyone in your LoCo whose mother tongue is not English:

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoCouncil

The LoCo Council is at the heart of the governance of the Ubuntu LoCo community, and with such a diverse community as ours, it just makes sense to reflect this diversity in a set of translations for everyone.

Here’s how you can translate the LoCo Council page to your language:

• Add your language and a link to the page where you want to put the translation to the table on top of https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoCouncil I’ve added some few languages already for your convenience.
• I recommend creating a subpage named after the two-letter or threee-letter code for your language (e.g. LoCoCouncil/th for Thai).
• Copy the content of the original English page to your new page
• Translate!
• Save your translation and you’re done

I’ve also created the Catalan translation to give you an example:

Remember that we’ve got other LoCo Council pages which can be translated. In particular the LoCo team reapproval one would be quite interesting to have available in everyone’s own language to read:

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoCouncil/LoCoTeamReApproval

Thanks!

????As most of you know, we’ve got an amazing translations community in Ubuntu. Every day, hundreds of translators use Launchpad Translations as a tool to make our OS of choice available in almost any language.

As such, I’m thrilled to announce a set of GSoC projects focused on Launchpad Translations and aimed towards improving the Ubuntu translations community experience.

Here they are:

Projects

Package set views in Launchpad Translations

Currently we expose the full list of translations in the main archive to Ubuntu translators. This is generally overwhelming for new translators and it does not show accurate statistics on how well translated a distribution is. It would be useful to have a global view of projects or modules which would only include the templates which are part of them (e.g. Ubuntu, Kubuntu, UNR, or even further granularisation in subprojects or most important upstreams: GNOME, KDE, etc.). This could be e.g. modelled after the package sets already available from Launchpad.

Full Launchpad Translations API

The aim of this project is to implement a full API for the Launchpad Translations component. This will allow accessing translations-related data from Launchpad through launchpadlib. The API can be subdivided in several components (e.g. reporting -already being developed-, imports queue, translations, etc.) and will open the door to a broad range of uses of Launchpad Translations: more automated management of Ubuntu translations, automated status tracking of imports by users, client-side online translation, navigation of the site in custom applications, requesting downloads, fetching individual messages or suggestions, etc.

Native support for OpenOffice.org translations format in Launchpad Translations

Launchpad Translations standardizes on using the Gettext PO format for importing and exporting translations. While this covers the majority of Open Source projects supporting localization, there are a couple of notable exceptions. These implement custom formats and cannot be directly imported or exported. OpenOffice.org is one of them. Its custom GSI/SDF translation format needs to be converted to gettext before importing it into Launchpad. This causes quite a lot of packaging overhead and manual work, and the translations cannot use the language pack infrastructure. Due to this, we had to recently disable OpenOffice.org translations in Launchpad. We want Ubuntu translators to be able to translate OpenOffice.org in Launchpad as any other Ubuntu package and to be able to contribute translations back to upstream. The aim of this project is to implement native support for importing and exporting OpenOffice.org’s GSI/SDF translation format.

Full native support for Mozilla translations format in Launchpad Translations

Launchpad Translations standardizes on using the Gettext PO format for importing and exporting translations. While this covers the majority of Open Source projects supporting localization, there are a couple of notable exceptions. These implement custom formats and cannot be directly imported or exported. Firefox uses the custom XPI translations format and is one of them. While native import support is already implemented and functional, translations are currently exported in an intermediate format and the conversion back to XPI is done outside of Launchpad. We want the Ubuntu Mozilla translations to be exported in native format and be able to use them directly in language packs and allow contributing the translations back to upstream. The aim of this project is to complete the support for the Mozilla translation format and enabling native export.

Native support for XML documentation in Launchpad Translations

Launchpad Translations standardizes on using the Gettext PO format for importing and exporting translations. This generally covers the majority of Open Source projects supporting localization, but only their user interface. Documentation is generally produced in other formats (mostly docbook) and must be converted to the Gettext PO format before importing it into Launchpad and converted back to XML upon export. This additional step, generally performed by tools such as `xml2po` or `po4all` currently stops us from importing documentation of upstream projects for translation in Launchpad in Ubuntu. The aim of this project is to implement native XML support for translatable documentation in Launchpad Translations, so that it can be seamlessly imported and exported.

Adding POT template generation support for layouts other than intltool in Launchpad Translations

Upstream integration is the current development focus in Launchpad. To that end, the Launchpad Translations component is being extended to enable translation imports directly from bzr branches of upstream projects. One important aspect of this feature is the automatic regeneration of POT translation templates from the branches, which is implemented using what is internally called the pottery infrastructure. Pottery currently supports the intltool layout, which already covers a great number of Open Source projects. However, there will still a percentage of upstream projects which do not follow this standard intltool layout. The aim of this project is to extend pottery to support additional formats, so that the maximum number of upstreams can be imported into Launchpad Translations.

So, you’d like to work on this?

Danilo Šegan, the Launchpad Translations team lead, will be the mentor for these projects, but you can use me as a backup contact as well, especially this week, as Danilo is away on a coding sprint.

You’ll find all the information you need on Ubuntu’s participation in the GSoC 2010 and how to get involved here:

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GoogleSoC2010

So here’s your chance of joining the team of Launchpad developer legends and making the Ubuntu translation experience even more awesome.

If you are wondering what all this is about, here is some content to get you started:

• How to get started with Launchpad development
• Adi Roiban and Henning Eggers‘ Ubuntu Developer Week session on Launchpad Translations Under the Hood
• Additional content for the Launchpad Translations Under the Hood session

And if you’ve got any questions, feel free to ask!

Ok, the countdown has started for the Ubuntu Global Jam. It’s less than 10 days until Ubuntu teams around the globe show off some community power and join the fest to make our favourite OS even more awesome.

For the late-comers:

• WHAT: Ubuntu Global Jam
• WHEN: Weekend of the 26th to 28th of March 2010
• WHERE: Everywhere around the world! Check out your nearest LoCo

There are plenty of activities to choose this time (Bugs, Testing, Upgrade, Documentation, Translations, Packaging). Be creative!

And do remember to add your event to the LoCo Directory as well.

If you’ve never run a jam, do join us on IRC in #ubuntu-locoteams and ask questions, or even better, check out Jono’s videocast and the easy steps on how to organize and run one. We’ve also been running some training sessions on IRC you might find interesting.

As Rafael nicely put it, the Catalan team will be rocking it again this time round, with Translations, Testing, Upgrading and surely with improvisation

By the way, how many of you are going to be running translation jams? Has anyone got any tips or experiences to share? We’d like to hear them!

I’ve been meaning to talk about this cool project for some days.

Enter Nightmonkey:

Nightmonkey 2.0

What’s this?

Nightmonkey is a project created and driven by the Ubuntu Hungarian team to allow an easier translation of the descriptions of packages, with István Nyitrai as the main developer and rockstar.

These are the short and long texts used to describe what a particular software package does. They are shown in different places in the system, most notably on Software Center when you are looking at an application’s info page.

Why is this so cool?

For multiple reasons. Let me just mention a few:

• It’s a community project around translations, providing an alternative view to translatable packages in Launchpad. This makes them more discoverable and eases the translation process.
• It was designed with upstream collaboration in mind. István and Michael Vogt made a great effort to ensure these translations can be sent back to Debian.
• It’s very easy to use, and it allows filtering translations according to popularity, so that translators can focus their work on the descriptions of most important applications.
• It is a great tool for teams to set translation goals and use it for Translation Jams, for example.

Can I contribute to it?

Well of course!, Nightmonkey is Open Source, and you can:

• Translate it
• Improve it
• Report bugs
• Ask and answer questions

Check out the project’s wiki page at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Nightmonkey

Looking forward to seeing more of such awesome community projects developed around Ubuntu Translations!