{"thread":{"id":"17353","subject":"Translations in Git release?","startedAt":"2009-01-25T17:41:02Z","lastAt":"2009-01-27T14:45:56Z","messageCount":15,"participants":["Dill","Jeff King","Johannes Gilger","Peter Krefting","Jakub Narebski","Miklos Vajna","Mike Hommey","Sverre Rabbelier","Junio C Hamano"],"isPatch":false,"patchVersion":null,"patchTotal":null},"messages":[{"id":"101842","messageId":"60646ee10901250941s34f7accem1b74fc201e895a41@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"17353","inReplyTo":null,"subject":"Translations in Git release?","fromName":"Dill","fromEmail":"sarpulhu@gmail.com","sentAt":"2009-01-25T17:41:02Z","receivedAt":"2009-01-25T17:41:02Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"sarpulhu@gmail.com","avatar":null},"body":"Is there a plan to include translations of the Documentation within\nGit or should they exist outside of the project?\n"},{"id":"101858","messageId":"20090125185447.GB12727@sigill.intra.peff.net","threadId":"17353","inReplyTo":"60646ee10901250941s34f7accem1b74fc201e895a41@mail.gmail.com","subject":"Re: Translations in Git release?","fromName":"Jeff King","fromEmail":"peff@peff.net","sentAt":"2009-01-25T18:54:47Z","receivedAt":"2009-01-25T18:54:47Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"peff@peff.net","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/45925?v=4"},"body":"On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 10:41:02AM -0700, Dill wrote:\n\n> Is there a plan to include translations of the Documentation within\n> Git or should they exist outside of the project?\n\nI don't recall seeing any discussion on documentation translations\npreviously. But there is some precedent for having translations in the\ntree, as git-gui's messages are translated into quite a few languages.\n\n-Peff\n"},{"id":"101955","messageId":"glk19g$2f5$1@ger.gmane.org","threadId":"17353","inReplyTo":"60646ee10901250941s34f7accem1b74fc201e895a41@mail.gmail.com","subject":"Re: Translations in Git release?","fromName":"Johannes Gilger","fromEmail":"heipei@hackvalue.de","sentAt":"2009-01-26T09:54:56Z","receivedAt":"2009-01-26T09:54:56Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"heipei@hackvalue.de","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/6072?v=4"},"body":"On 2009-01-25, Dill wrote:\n> Is there a plan to include translations of the Documentation within\n> Git or should they exist outside of the project?\n\nMy oppinion on localization of software (and its documentation) is \ngenerally a negative one. \n\n- People who use software like git are (in my experience) people who \nhave a solid foundation of english, especially when it comes to \ncomputer-topics.\n- The effort that goes into translating the vast git documentation and \nkeeping it up-to-date isn't small, energy better spent in other areas.\n- Translating a lot of technical terms into a language like german is \nreally ugly and not fun to read. I always prefer reading english \ndocumentation and using non-localized versions of programs as it enables \nme to easier partake in discussions about it and also enables me to \ngoogle for error messages without trying every different language the \nmessage could be in ;)\n\nBut thats just me, if you want to start a translation effort knock \nyourself out\n\nGreetings,\nJojo\n\n-- \nJohannes Gilger \nhttp://hackvalue.de/heipei/\nGPG-Key: 0x42F6DE81\nGPG-Fingerprint: BB49 F967 775E BB52 3A81 882C 58EE B178 42F6 DE81\n"},{"id":"101957","messageId":"Pine.LNX.4.64.0901261104060.7798@ds9.cixit.se","threadId":"17353","inReplyTo":"glk19g$2f5$1@ger.gmane.org","subject":"Re: Translations in Git release?","fromName":"Peter Krefting","fromEmail":"peter@softwolves.pp.se","sentAt":"2009-01-26T10:07:15Z","receivedAt":"2009-01-26T10:07:15Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"peter@softwolves.pp.se","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/990764?v=4"},"body":"Johannes Gilger:\n\n> My oppinion on localization of software (and its documentation) is\n> generally a negative one.\n\nThat's the normal response from tech-savvy people. They usually dislike\ntranslations because they think it cannot convey the same ideas as the\noriginal.\n\nHowever, for a lot of less techy people, having to use software and\nread documentation in a non-native language *is* a big hurdle for using\ncomputers. That is especially true when it comes to complex software,\nsuch as Git.\n\nI would very much like to see the core git commands translated. The\ncommand-line svn client already talks Swedish to me (cvs does not,\nthough), and I would be very happy to teach git the same. I already did\ntranslate git-gui and gitk, which was as much for my own benefit as\nothers.\n\n-- \n\\\\// Peter - http://www.softwolves.pp.se/\n"},{"id":"101979","messageId":"m3hc3mxn9d.fsf@localhost.localdomain","threadId":"17353","inReplyTo":"60646ee10901250941s34f7accem1b74fc201e895a41@mail.gmail.com","subject":"Re: Translations [of Documentation] in Git release?","fromName":"Jakub Narebski","fromEmail":"jnareb@gmail.com","sentAt":"2009-01-26T12:31:01Z","receivedAt":"2009-01-26T12:31:01Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"jnareb@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/2706?v=4"},"body":"Dill writes:\n\n> Is there a plan to include translations of the Documentation within\n> Git or should they exist outside of the project?\n\nFirst, you should have mention that you are talking about translating\n_Documentation_, because there are at least three areas which can be\ntranslated:\n * GUI (gtik and git-gui), which is being done\n * Documentation, which leads to translated manpages and HTML docs\n * git command messages (but only porcelain, as scripts parse\n git command output)\n \nSecond, the problem with translating Documentation is twofold. There\nis fundamental problem with translated documentation becoming out of\nsync (stale) unless you have people ready to follow changes to main\ndocumentation. This is less of a problem with GUI messages, as they\nchange less frequently, there are shorter, and there is less volume of\nthem.\n\nAnd there is technical problem of how to organize translations. With\nGUI translations we just use gettext conventions. I don't know any\nsuch convention for docs: there is suffix convention used by Apache to\nserve var language files (filename.txt.de, filename.txt.ja.euc-jp),\nand there is gettext-like convention of separate directories used by\nmanpages (en/filename.txt, ja/filename.txt). And there is question\nwhere to put untranslated original... And to enhance Makefile to put\ntranslations in correct place. And possibly alter RPM .spec file to\nput translations in separate packages.\n\nSo I am not sure if translated documentation should be not maintained\nout of tree...\n\n-- \nJakub Narebski\nPoland\nShadeHawk on #git\n"},{"id":"101983","messageId":"Pine.LNX.4.64.0901261426350.7798@ds9.cixit.se","threadId":"17353","inReplyTo":"m3hc3mxn9d.fsf@localhost.localdomain","subject":"Re: Translations [of Documentation] in Git release?","fromName":"Peter Krefting","fromEmail":"peter@softwolves.pp.se","sentAt":"2009-01-26T13:27:17Z","receivedAt":"2009-01-26T13:27:17Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"peter@softwolves.pp.se","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/990764?v=4"},"body":"Jakub Narebski:\n\n> With GUI translations we just use gettext conventions. I don't know\n> any such convention for docs:\n\nThere is a lot of documentation being translated using PO files. po4a -\nhttp://po4a.alioth.debian.org/ - is a nice starting point for that.\n\n-- \n\\\\// Peter - http://www.softwolves.pp.se/\n"},{"id":"101984","messageId":"20090126133420.GK21473@genesis.frugalware.org","threadId":"17353","inReplyTo":"Pine.LNX.4.64.0901261426350.7798@ds9.cixit.se","subject":"Re: Translations [of Documentation] in Git release?","fromName":"Miklos Vajna","fromEmail":"vmiklos@frugalware.org","sentAt":"2009-01-26T13:34:20Z","receivedAt":"2009-01-26T13:34:20Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"vmiklos@frugalware.org","avatar":"https://gravatar.com/avatar/401c1cbbb3a5d13e650c691a2c71d6fd0b80df1a01bc74d9f1972675dd58f2bd?d=mp&s=160"},"body":"On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 02:27:17PM +0100, Peter Krefting wrote:\n> There is a lot of documentation being translated using PO files. po4a -\n> http://po4a.alioth.debian.org/ - is a nice starting point for that.\n\nActually it supports asciidoc files as well, but only the CVS version,\nso probably the po4a version installed on most machines (as a distro\npackage) is not capable of managing asciidoc files.\n"},{"id":"101992","messageId":"200901261631.18157.jnareb@gmail.com","threadId":"17353","inReplyTo":"Pine.LNX.4.64.0901261426350.7798@ds9.cixit.se","subject":"Re: Translations [of Documentation] in Git release?","fromName":"Jakub Narebski","fromEmail":"jnareb@gmail.com","sentAt":"2009-01-26T15:31:17Z","receivedAt":"2009-01-26T15:31:17Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"jnareb@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/2706?v=4"},"body":"On Mon, 26 Jan 2009, Peter Krefting wrote:\n> Jakub Narebski wrote:\n> \n> > With GUI translations we just use gettext conventions. I don't know\n> > any such convention for docs:\n> \n> There is a lot of documentation being translated using PO files. po4a -\n> http://po4a.alioth.debian.org/ - is a nice starting point for that.\n\nI'm not sure if XLIFF wouldn't be better format to use to translate\n_documents_. Gettext was meant to translate, I think, not very long\nmessages in programs.\n\nAlso I am not sure how much support this idea has. True, in last Git\nUser's Survey[1] 63% to 76% wanted (parts of) Documentation... but that\nwas out of 325 people who answered this question, with 3236 responses\nto survey in total, so numbers are more like 6% - 8%.\n\n[1] http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitSurvey2008\n[2] http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/\n\n-- \nJakub Narebski\nPoland\n"},{"id":"101997","messageId":"20090126162351.GA8911@glandium.org","threadId":"17353","inReplyTo":"200901261631.18157.jnareb@gmail.com","subject":"Re: Translations [of Documentation] in Git release?","fromName":"Mike Hommey","fromEmail":"mh@glandium.org","sentAt":"2009-01-26T16:23:51Z","receivedAt":"2009-01-26T16:23:51Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"mh@glandium.org","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/1038527?v=4"},"body":"On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 04:31:17PM +0100, Jakub Narebski wrote:\n> On Mon, 26 Jan 2009, Peter Krefting wrote:\n> > Jakub Narebski wrote:\n> > \n> > > With GUI translations we just use gettext conventions. I don't know\n> > > any such convention for docs:\n> > \n> > There is a lot of documentation being translated using PO files. po4a -\n> > http://po4a.alioth.debian.org/ - is a nice starting point for that.\n> \n> I'm not sure if XLIFF wouldn't be better format to use to translate\n> _documents_. Gettext was meant to translate, I think, not very long\n> messages in programs.\n> \n> Also I am not sure how much support this idea has. True, in last Git\n> User's Survey[1] 63% to 76% wanted (parts of) Documentation... but that\n> was out of 325 people who answered this question, with 3236 responses\n> to survey in total, so numbers are more like 6% - 8%.\n\nOn the other hand, the people who would really need the translations\ndidn't answer the survey at all, since they couldn't read it.\n\nMike\n"},{"id":"102028","messageId":"bd6139dc0901261130ic64f767gddc960ebe3dfecf2@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"17353","inReplyTo":"20090126162351.GA8911@glandium.org","subject":"Re: Translations [of Documentation] in Git release?","fromName":"Sverre Rabbelier","fromEmail":"srabbelier@gmail.com","sentAt":"2009-01-26T19:30:35Z","receivedAt":"2009-01-26T19:30:35Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"srabbelier@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/3098?v=4"},"body":"On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 17:23, Mike Hommey wrote:\n> On the other hand, the people who would really need the translations\n> didn't answer the survey at all, since they couldn't read it.\n\nPerhaps the basics can be translated at least, the documents that do\nnot require much change because they represent stable concepts?\n\n-- \nCheers,\n\nSverre Rabbelier\n"},{"id":"102035","messageId":"60646ee10901261158w65b539dida26d2bd3bae6903@mail.gmail.com","threadId":"17353","inReplyTo":"200901261631.18157.jnareb@gmail.com","subject":"Re: Translations [of Documentation] in Git release?","fromName":"Dill","fromEmail":"sarpulhu@gmail.com","sentAt":"2009-01-26T19:58:24Z","receivedAt":"2009-01-26T19:58:24Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"sarpulhu@gmail.com","avatar":null},"body":"I was thinking of handling it like the Linux kernel documentation...?\n\nOn 1/26/09, Jakub Narebski wrote:\n> On Mon, 26 Jan 2009, Peter Krefting wrote:\n>> Jakub Narebski wrote:\n>>\n>> > With GUI translations we just use gettext conventions. I don't know\n>> > any such convention for docs:\n>>\n>> There is a lot of documentation being translated using PO files. po4a -\n>> http://po4a.alioth.debian.org/ - is a nice starting point for that.\n>\n> I'm not sure if XLIFF wouldn't be better format to use to translate\n> _documents_. Gettext was meant to translate, I think, not very long\n> messages in programs.\n>\n> Also I am not sure how much support this idea has. True, in last Git\n> User's Survey[1] 63% to 76% wanted (parts of) Documentation... but that\n> was out of 325 people who answered this question, with 3236 responses\n> to survey in total, so numbers are more like 6% - 8%.\n>\n> [1] http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitSurvey2008\n> [2] http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/\n>\n> --\n> Jakub Narebski\n> Poland\n>\n"},{"id":"102047","messageId":"7vskn54xbt.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org","threadId":"17353","inReplyTo":"60646ee10901261158w65b539dida26d2bd3bae6903@mail.gmail.com","subject":"Re: Translations [of Documentation] in Git release?","fromName":"Junio C Hamano","fromEmail":"gitster@pobox.com","sentAt":"2009-01-26T20:38:30Z","receivedAt":"2009-01-26T20:38:30Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"gitster@pobox.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/54884?v=4"},"body":"Dill writes:\n\n> On 1/26/09, Jakub Narebski wrote:\n>> On Mon, 26 Jan 2009, Peter Krefting wrote:\n>>> Jakub Narebski wrote:\n>>>\n>>> > With GUI translations we just use gettext conventions. I don't know\n>>> > any such convention for docs:\n>>>\n>>> There is a lot of documentation being translated using PO files. po4a -\n>>> http://po4a.alioth.debian.org/ - is a nice starting point for that.\n>>\n>> I'm not sure if XLIFF wouldn't be better format to use to translate\n>> _documents_. Gettext was meant to translate, I think, not very long\n>> messages in programs.\n>>\n>> Also I am not sure how much support this idea has. True, in last Git\n>> User's Survey[1] 63% to 76% wanted (parts of) Documentation... but that\n>> was out of 325 people who answered this question, with 3236 responses\n>> to survey in total, so numbers are more like 6% - 8%.\n>>\n>> [1] http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitSurvey2008\n>> [2] http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/\n>> ...\n> I was thinking of handling it like the Linux kernel documentation...?\n\nBy this, I understand you mean the model that lets the authors of the\noriginal English documentation be unaware of the presense of translations,\nand resulting translated files are placed in Documentation/??_??/ (where\n\"??_??\" are ja_JP, zh_CN, etc.) subdirectory.\n\nThe approach obviously risks the translations to go stale very easily, but\ngives a nice separation of reponsibility and does not slow down the way\nthe original documents are updated. I would actually prefer a directory\nstructure \"Documentation/translated/??_??/\" so that people who are not\ninvolved in the translation do not have to see anything below _one_\ndirectory (i.e. \"translated\").\n\nIf you step in as the Documentation translation coordinator to maintain\nsuch a tree structure that I can have as a submodule (or subtree merge) to\ngit.git tree, you could talk me into updating my tree from time to time\nfrom your tree, but at that point we might actually want to have such a\ntranslation project as a separate and unrelated project.\n\nBy the way,\n\n http://github.com/yasuaki/git-manual-jp.git/\n\nhas some Japanese translations (no, I am not involved in this any way, and\nI do not know about its current status).\n\nIf you look at files in Documentation/ (not Documentation.ja) in that\nrepository, you can see how they tried to make it easier to update the\ntranslation to match the original documentation set when the original gets\nupdated. I do not know how well the approach works in practice, though.\n"},{"id":"102093","messageId":"Pine.LNX.4.64.0901270800100.26770@ds9.cixit.se","threadId":"17353","inReplyTo":"bd6139dc0901261130ic64f767gddc960ebe3dfecf2@mail.gmail.com","subject":"Re: Translations [of Documentation] in Git release?","fromName":"Peter Krefting","fromEmail":"peter@softwolves.pp.se","sentAt":"2009-01-27T07:01:53Z","receivedAt":"2009-01-27T07:01:53Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"peter@softwolves.pp.se","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/990764?v=4"},"body":"Sverre Rabbelier:\n\n> Perhaps the basics can be translated at least, the documents that do\n> not require much change because they represent stable concepts?\n\nI usually start out translating the program output, then manual pages,\nand then, time permitting, documentation.\n\nGit is a bit special in that regard since \"--help\" gets hardwired to\ndisplay the manual page, so one can't just translate the help screen.\n\n-- \n\\\\// Peter - http://www.softwolves.pp.se/\n"},{"id":"102106","messageId":"200901271216.59687.jnareb@gmail.com","threadId":"17353","inReplyTo":"Pine.LNX.4.64.0901270800100.26770@ds9.cixit.se","subject":"Re: Translations [of Documentation] in Git release?","fromName":"Jakub Narebski","fromEmail":"jnareb@gmail.com","sentAt":"2009-01-27T11:16:58Z","receivedAt":"2009-01-27T11:16:58Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"jnareb@gmail.com","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/2706?v=4"},"body":"On Tue, 27 Jan 2009, Peter Krefting wrote:\n> Sverre Rabbelier:\n> \n> > Perhaps the basics can be translated at least, the documents that do\n> > not require much change because they represent stable concepts?\n> \n> I usually start out translating the program output, then manual pages,\n> and then, time permitting, documentation.\n\nThe problem with translating program output (program messages) in Git\nis twofold: fundamental and technical. Fundamental, that program\noutput is considered API (at least for plumbing commands) and used\nwhen scripting (this might be ameliorated with \"I am script\" switch\nor environmental variable). Technical, because Git is mixture of\nprograms in C, shell scripts, and Perl scripts, and you have to come\nwith technical means of translating messages in all three of them.\n\n> Git is a bit special in that regard since \"--help\" gets hardwired to\n> display the manual page, so one can't just translate the help screen.\n\nNot in all cases. Sometimes it shows \"long usage\". Perhaps that should\nbe made more consistent?\n\n-- \nJakub Narebski\nPoland\n"},{"id":"102121","messageId":"Pine.LNX.4.64.0901271541250.26770@ds9.cixit.se","threadId":"17353","inReplyTo":"200901271216.59687.jnareb@gmail.com","subject":"Re: Translations [of Documentation] in Git release?","fromName":"Peter Krefting","fromEmail":"peter@softwolves.pp.se","sentAt":"2009-01-27T14:45:56Z","receivedAt":"2009-01-27T14:45:56Z","isPatch":false,"sender":{"key":"peter@softwolves.pp.se","avatar":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/990764?v=4"},"body":"Jakub Narebski:\n\n> Fundamental, that program output is considered API (at least for\n> plumbing commands) and used when scripting (this might be ameliorated\n> with \"I am script\" switch or environmental variable).\n\nThat's a bug. Protocol data (which one could consider the plumbing\noutput to be) should never be forwarded to the end-user, except for\ndebugging purposes. It is the porcelain's task here to translate the\nmessages for the user.\n\nPlumbing commands could still output semi-readable English, but it is\nstill to be considered protocol, and be hidden from the user. Having\nlow-level protocol data filter through to the end-user is a common\nmistake in software, unfortunately, and makes internationalization and\nlocalization a lot harder.\n\nOf course, if the user insists on calling the plumbing commands\ndirectly, he will not get translated output. That's expected behaviour.\n\n> Technical, because Git is mixture of programs in C, shell scripts,\n> and Perl scripts, and you have to come with technical means of\n> translating messages in all three of them.\n\nGettext has succesfully been used to translate messages in all of these\nenvironments, so that should not be a big problem.\n\n> Not in all cases. Sometimes it shows \"long usage\". Perhaps that\n> should be made more consistent?\n\nConsistency is good.\n\n-- \n\\\\// Peter - http://www.softwolves.pp.se/\n"}]}