discuss: Decline in Translations (was Re: French question)
Subject:
Re: [discuss] Decline in Translations (was Re: French question)
From:
Yaroslav Fedevych ####@####.####
Date:
2 Jan 2006 14:53:19 -0000
Message-Id: <20060102145317.GA20926@fly.osdn.org.ua>
On Sun, Jan 01, 2006 at 08:48:20PM -0800, David Lawyer wrote:
> I think there are a number of reasons for the substantial decline in
> the translation effort. One was that no one at LDP examined what
> kinds of documentation were needed but missing from the collection.
> Even if someone had done this, it doesn't mean that an author could be
> found to write such documentation. Another reason is that a number of
> important docs weren't updated. So the above implies that there are
> just not very many up-to-date and important docs that are worthwhile
> to translate. Finding which ones are worthwhile to translate is
> another problem.
>
I saw one way to do it: gather any valuable pieces of advice from
mailing lists and update the docs in question. Why? Because I find
information that is up to date not in any manuals, but in those lists.
And the manuals are always 2 or even 3 version bumps late.
> I think the above is not a major factor. Rather there is less need
> for translations and I suppose some dismay when it was observed that
> translations are more apt to be out-of-date due to the time lag
> between writing something and completing a translation of it. This is
> especially true since the translations are being done by volunteers
> that often don't have too much time to devote to it and thus
> translation is not done very fast. And then there's the problem of
> updating translations when the doc is updated. By then, the original
> translator may not be available. Minor changes in wording can cause a
> lot of work for translators.
>
It's not at all encouraging to write a translation for a good but
hopelessly outdated original work. There are some printouts of
translation I've begun for NAG 2nd Edition, now what do I do with them?
It's almost six years old and despite my repeated tries I've never heard
back from Terry Dawson, the last maintainer, nor O'Reilly.
> Another factor is documentation supplied by the various distributions
> and also by Gnome and KDE.
It's also often a version or two late.
> Also, Linux on the desktop hasn't grown
> very fast in countries (such as China, Russia, etc.) where most people
> get Windows for free. Then there's the competition with printed
> non-free (mostly) Linux documentation.
Yep. But that printed, non-free documentation is a pile of crap. I live
in Ukraine, so I know what I'm talking about. But, still, volunteer
translators here are not as professional as it is needed to make a
really competing work.
> So improving the quality and scope of LDP's documentation would help
> revive the translation effort.
*Sigh* Please, please, please do something to make it at least _current_.
That alone would be a great help.
--
* Let's just hope that all the world is run by Bill Gates before the
Perl hackers can destroy it.
