On Tuesday, 22 May 2018 01:00:35 CEST Jonathan Corbet wrote: > On Mon, 21 May 2018 22:54:18 +0200 > > Federico Vaga <federico.vaga@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > I'm writing you because I would like to start an effort to > > translate the Documentation in Italian. I would like also to > > express the idea of providing guide lines for translations. > > Mi sembra un'ottima idea! :) Siamo sulla stessa lunghezza d'onda :) > > I know that there are already translations for Asian languages but > > I am not able to find the history of them. I do not know if > > translations in European languages are going to be accepted > > (perhaps there is the assumption that everyone knows English in > > the European continent and it is a waste of energy to do > > translations[?]). For example, even if French and Germans are > > quite active there are not translations yet in their language: is > > there a particular reason or simply nobody did it? > > Nobody has done it. There certainly is no policy against > translations to any specific language - that would be hard to > justify, to say the least. > > OK, I might draw the line at Klingon. But the discussion of error > handling in Klingon could actually be a lot of fun. > > I'm happy to accept new translations of stuff in the documentation > directory. In general, I've had two concerns about translations: > they are generally impossible for me to review, and there needs to > be somebody committed to keeping the translations current as the > documentation changes. For Italian, the first problem doesn't > exist, but the second is always there. What are your intentions for > maintaining the translations in the long term? I can maintain the Italian translation. > > If you agree with the need to support different translations, I > > would like to do the Italian one. But first I would like to open > > a little discussion about translations "how to write > > translations"; this discussion should produce a document (in > > English) with guide lines for translator (e.g. Documentation/ > > translation/howto.rst): what to translate first, what to NOT > > translate, how to structure it. > > Once this is defined I will start the Italian translation (I > > already have some documents translated). > > This can be a fine plan, assuming we're convinced that the > guidelines document is really needed. I guess I'm not yet > convinced of that. But you might also consider gaining some > experience in writing, merging, and maintaining a translation > before trying to lay down rules for everybody else. In other > words, I think you might want to do things in the opposite order. You are right, probably I was over-engineering this thing :) > > > How to do translations (IMHO) > > ----------------------------- > > Here my personal guide lines for translations > > > > - Translate only sphinx-ready documents, do not translate > > documents which are not yet sphinx. We should avoid useless > > double work; at some point, I guess, everything will be sphinx. > > I wouldn't insist on that. But a better idea in any case would be: > if a document you want to translate isn't yet in RST, just do the > conversion. The amount of work required is usually quite small. ok > > - Include in all documents a disclaimer saying that English is the > > main reference (use sphinx directive 'include' to include it). > > - Include in all documents a reference to the English version. So > > it will be easy jump to the original document. > > Remember that the docs need to be readable *without* Sphinx > processing. Better to just name the source document in a quick line > at the top, IMO. ok > > - Translate in order: non-technical documents (they are stable, > > useful for a wider group of people (developers and managers): > > process/, doc-guide/ ), technical documents about key concepts > > (they are stable, and important for new-comers), subsystems (the > > big picture is stable, typically they do not describe all little > > details that may change), and then other documents > If you want to work in that order, that is more than fine. Others > have agreed - the process docs tend to get translated first. But > if somebody else wants to start elsewhere, I wouldn't try to tell > them not to. > > Anyway, thanks for wanting to help improve the documentation! If > you have some of this work already done, you might want to consider > going ahead and posting some patches. I will review them and push something in the next days -- Federico Vaga http://www.federicovaga.it/ -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-doc" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
