I am extremely pleased to announce that our translation system is now ready for a beta release.
We have just completed extracting the whole content of GetGNULinux.org into strings that can be easily translated in our Pootle install. Pootle allows anyone to start a translation in their language immediately, without requiring any specific technical knowledge.
The translated language strings are then re-combined using our home-made software installation, Poliglota. GetGNULinux.org is now built and released through Poliglota.
The starting point for translators, on the present website, links to a short PDF document with guidelines.
I cannot stress enough the importance of this release for our organization. Before the end of February, we will reach out of beta (announced with a press release) and start developing many translations simultaneously and efficiently. Right now of course, the focus is on fixing bugs and setting-up the last details so everything works smoothly.
The hero of this event is Gustavo (who?). Over the last six months of hard work that lead to this release, he:
- oversaw and managed the transition of our websites from pure code to an easily-translatable format
- set-up our Pootle install, migrating servers twice (!) in the process
- wrote a significant and well-built server application, Poliglota, from scratch, to do what Pootle did not do
- organized all of our on-line tools (bug tracker, repository, pootle, poliglota) cleanly
- bore unfailingly with the non-techy (me!) among us.
It’s his vision for a translation system which is live now. So kudos and many thanks to him =)
I have to say I’m not solely responsible for this =). Olivier also made a huge effort to deal with programming languages (and that’s something he doesn’t enjoy). He was also the one with enough patience to port the whole GetGNULinux.org website to the new infrastructure… So it’s also his fault! :)