[Po4a-dev]Re: French translation of GNU software manuals

[Martin v. Löwis]

Arnaud Gomes-do-Vale <address@hidden> writes:

> BTW, this could allow to store the translation in the same source
> file(s) as the original. In XML, this would be something along the
> lines of:

That would be possible, but I'm unsure whether it would be
desirable. A French team once translated the Python documentation
using this approach: The Python documentation is written in Texinfo,
and they have a script that puts all paragraphs into Tex comments, so
that the translators can put the translations below the English
paragraphs. That has worked reasonably well, however, there was no
procedure to update the resulting translations to newer versions of
the English documentation.

> Yes. It is just not necessarily practical. I mean, keeping in touch
> with the author, sending him feedback and keeping him informed of your
> changes is important, but I think a translator should not have to
> bother the author just to "please add this magic comment stuff here".

This is what the project (coordinators) should do. In the TP, it is
the primary task of the project leaders to work with maintainers to
fulfill the requests of translators, and to work with translators to
fulfill the requests of maintainers. The requests will be the same
independent of language and project, so this should reduce the total
work for everybody.

Unfortunately, when a new area of the noosphere is being homesteaded
[ESR], some translator will have to do all the work of promotion,
investigation, and development, so that the other translators will
find a paved road. I'm hoping that you will be the one in the area of
texinfo manuals. In order to not overload anybody, slow progress must
be accepted, until procedures are clear and both maintainers and
translators can be given clear guidance.

Regards,
Martin