[OmegaT-l10n] Some more thoughts about l10n

[Marc P. <ma...@ma...>]

Samuel,

> Distributing old documentation with the current version serves little purpose for users.

We don't deliberately distribute old documentation. We distribute the most recent documentation in each language.

The principle is that to certain users, who may for example not be particularly competent in English (as in fact the user group bears out), older documentation may be more useful than up-to-date documentation in a language that they are less conversant with. It is true that in some cases, a user may be better served by up-to-date documentation in another language (almost always English) than out-of-date documentation in their own language. But in that case, they are free to make the choice themselves, and I think most readers will have realized that the English documentation is often more up to date. If you think otherwise, I suggest that a note to this effect be inserted in all language versions.

In fact, another argument for including the older documentation is precisely to underline the point to users (who are professional translators and therefore potential volunteer localizers) that their help is needed in keeping the localized documentation up to date. We are supposed to be translators and therefore to value plurality of language. If the OmegaT project begins arguing that "everyone speaks English anyway", we can all change profession.

So, the scenario is not "old documentation" vs. "new documentation", it is "documentation in language X" vs. "no documentation in language X".

The principle of open source is that volunteers make their work available to others, who are then free to use it if they find it useful. The current localization policy is consistent with this philosophy. No one is forced to use "old documentation", but they have the choice in some cases of using an older version of the documentation in their own language or a more recent version in another language. I see no reason why they should be deprived of that choice.

I also think that it is unfair to volunteers that their work should effectively be discarded because someone else wants to decide on behalf of the people for whom it was intended that they should no longer have access to it.

> If TMs exist for the old documentation, why not simply pre-translate the existing documentation, and release it with the current version when translators have completed any whole pages in it?

This is a huge administrative overhead. The current localization procedure is designed for minimum admin overhead, and even then, neither Tony nor I are able to give it the attention it deserves. If you want to volunteer to take over the localization admin from Tony, please talk to him about it. If you do so, I very much doubt that you will want to be updating documentation on a page-by-page basis for any length of time, nor do I think that random but up-to-date pages of the documentation are better than complete but out-of-date documentation. For one thing, out-of-date documentation rarely results in users being unable to use the product; it simply means that they are more likely to miss new features, which they may miss in any case through being unable to understand foreign-language documentation.

If you get the impression that I feel strongly about this - you're right! :-)

Marc 


----- original message --------

Subject: Re: [OmegaT-l10n] Some more thoughts about l10n
Sent: Tue, 07 Apr 2009
From: Samuel Murray (Apeldoorn)<le...@ab...>

> Didier Briel wrote:
> 
> > From: Samuel Murray (Groenkloof) [mailto:sa...@tr...]
> 
> >> Wouldn't it be better to say "With version 1.8 we release only
> >> translations of version 1.8's documentation"?
> 
> > The documentation is not included in the version for volunteers, but for
> > readers.
> 
> I don't think I agree.  Old documentation is likely to refer to features 
> that are not present in the current program or to issues that are no 
> longer issues in the current program.  Distributing old documentation 
> with the current version serves little purpose for users.
> 
> If one is going to distribute incomplete documentation with a program, 
> rather let it be the current incomplete documentation and not old 
> incomplete documentation, I think.
> 
> If TMs exist for the old documentation, why not simply pre-translate the 
>   existing documentation, and release it with the current version when 
> translators have completed any whole pages in it?
> 
> Samuel
> 
> 
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--- original message end ----