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TinyTM - OmegaT

mstirner
2008-06-05
2013-04-24
  • mstirner

    mstirner - 2008-06-05

    I was rather pleased to encounter your website, and as a freelance translator, I certainly concur with your specifications:

    - Provide translation agencies, freelance translators and other translation organizations with free and standardized translation memory tools.

    - Spread the use of TMs and workflows to new areas such as content management and helpdesk applications

    The translation memory market is characterised by offline, single-user proprietary systems, which are expensive to deploy and all suffer from single-vendor lockin. The common TMX-format is not really supported, which prevents a breakthrough for free software systems such as OmegaT.

    In the light of recent developments such as online repositories of translations being públished for all free software projects, combined with the availability of online terminology issued by the EU, the implementation of a server-based translation memory system would be a fantastic opening for the translation industry.

    With OmegaT, there is already a working free software client that could be used with open office, which itself permits excellent file conversion to MS word. I would be immensely interested in contributing to the development of such a system. For MS word, there are already a few freely available clients (NOT free software).

    In the light of all the above, why on earth base it on VBA/MS-Word?

     
    • Frank Bergmann

      Frank Bergmann - 2008-06-12

      Hi Idpnd,

      > In the light of all the above, why on earth base it on VBA/MS-Word? 

      Good questions, but I think I've got a pretty good answer as well:

      TinyTM is _not_based_ on MS-Word. TinyTM is based on a client-server structure. Our MS-Word client makes a lot of sense in this context, because it was the fastest way to write a first "client" (translation environment). And MS-Word is still the #1 translation tool for 80%-90% of translators. Only a few "niche"-translators use OmegaT.

      Did you see Web site with our OmegaT client announcement. We're planning to connect OmegaT to our TinyTM-server. Is this still TinyTM then? Well, it's the OmegaT "editor" with the TinyTM linguistic component.

      Even more important, TinyTM allows _any_ kind of application to integrate with the server. I've just been to Localization World, and there seem to be a tendency for CMS systems and authoring tools to bypass the "classical" translation world and to integrate translation components right into the tools. So TinyTM is prepared for that and provides a scalable infrastructure for that.

      So Idpnd, do you program in Java? Why don't you try to modify OmegaT to connect to the TinyTM server? (But please let us know, so that we don't duplicate efforts...).

      > availability of online terminology issued by the EU

      Hey, I haven't heard about that one. Can you share a link with the community?

      > the implementation of a server-based translation memory system would
      > be a fantastic opening for the translation industry.

      Yep, that's the idea. Let's see how it goes. I've met some ~5 companies at L10nW who are in general willing to sponsor TinyTM and contribute both their name and (some of their...) money.

      I believe that this would be the right step now for TinyTM if we really want to become the market leader one day. What do you think?

      Greetings from Berlin,
      Frank

       
    • mstirner

      mstirner - 2008-06-20

      Danke für Deine schnelle Antwort!

      >> TinyTM is _not_based_ on MS-Word. TinyTM is based on a client-server structure. Our MS-Word client makes a lot of sense in this context, because it was the fastest way to write a first "client" (translation environment). And MS-Word is still the #1 translation tool for 80%-90% of translators. Only a few "niche"-translators use OmegaT.

      I agree that the odt dependency of omegat is its greatest weakness (could become a strength the way things are moving in the document formats sphere). There is actually dev on a free software wordfast-equivalent for open office now (http://anaphraseus.sourceforge.net/). I translate exclusively on open office, which actually has superior compatibility for the older MS word formats than word itself for certain files!

      > Did you see Web site with our OmegaT client announcement. We're planning to connect OmegaT to our TinyTM-server. Is this still TinyTM then? Well, it's the OmegaT "editor" with the TinyTM linguistic component.

      Excellent news.

      > there seem to be a tendency for CMS systems and authoring tools to bypass the "classical" translation world and to integrate translation components right into the tools. So TinyTM is prepared for that and provides a scalable infrastructure for that.

      I concur, many free software projects host the terminology in shared repositories as well (e.g. ubuntu/launchpad, drupal).

      > So Idpnd, do you program in Java? Why don't you try to modify OmegaT to connect to the TinyTM server? (But please let us know, so that we don't duplicate efforts...).

      Lack of skills, sorry.

      > availability of online terminology issued by the EU
      > Hey, I haven't heard about that one. Can you share a link with the community?

      http://iate.europa.eu/ The European Union translation workflow typically requires a couple of proprietary trados files.

      > the implementation of a server-based translation memory system would 
      > be a fantastic opening for the translation industry. 
      > Yep, that's the idea. Let's see how it goes. I've met some ~5 companies at L10nW who are > in general willing to sponsor TinyTM and contribute both their name and (some of > their...) money. 

      Good.

      > I believe that this would be the right step now for TinyTM if we really want to become
      > the market leader one day. What do you think?

      A an online, free-software component supporting the translation workflow would certainly be a revolution to an industry governed by proprietary protocols, vendor lock-in, and closed terminology databases/translation memories.

      Best regards,

      Max S

       
    • mstirner

      mstirner - 2008-06-20

      https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/freecats/

      have come across an earlier free software attempt at online repositories

       
    • Martin Wunderlich

      FYI, I am currently working on integrating OmegaT with TinyTM. I have the SOAP client and server components ready (ableit lacking the authentication bit). At present, I am trying to get the Java package for the SOAP into the OmegaT project, but I keep getting NoClassDefFoundErrors. In case anyone is interested and could give me hand...

      Cheers,

      Martin

       

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