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List:       squirrelmail-devel
Subject:    [SM-DEVEL] Obstacles for SquirrelMail translation
From:       "Ignacio =?utf-8?b?QWd1bGzDsw==?=" <agullo () ati ! es>
Date:       2010-02-02 11:56:27
Message-ID: 20100202125627.17953wfua1jov5s0 () mail ! ati ! es
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      I shouldn't be participating in this list.  I am a developer,  
yes.  I can code in PHP, all right - but I haven't done it in the last  
five years.  The help I can provide is little.  I use SquirrelMail at  
work, and I am in charge of setting up computers on my workcenter, but  
not of the mail services - that's another guy in another building.   
So, I cannot check on most things without bothering others.

      So, what brought me here?  All I wanted to do was to get  
SquirrelMail translated into my language.  However, this was proven to  
be so much difficult that I entered this list as a last resort to get  
it.  And even this hasn't worked so far.

      Consider the long and winding road that took me here.  Bear in  
mind that I followed to the letter The SquirrelMail Translator's  
Manual, downloaded the template and translated it (that's a ten hours  
work).  This is the story of what happened afterwards.

a. The SquirrelMail Translator's Manual says at section 2.1, "Creating  
translations": "Submission. Send the language to the mailing list for  
inclusion with the official SquirrelMail package."  What mailing list?  
  There's no name, there's no link, no clues.  As of today, I read it  
more closely and read at section 1.1 "Translation policy": "New and  
updated SquirrelMail translations can be submitted to the  
squirrelmail-i18n mailing list.".  This wouldn't work, anyway, as  
explained later.

b. I checked on SquirrelMails websites (both at sourceforge.net and  
squirrelmail.org) for e-mail addresses in order to submit my  
translation.  But I found none, not for submitting translations, nor  
for any other purpose. There just aren't any.

c. Then I learnt that in order to make any contact, I should use a Sourceforge
account.  I always find it discouraging when they force you to sign up  
at a website on any occasion.  Translation should be submitted without  
being forced to sign up.  "Only SquirrelMail developers have write  
access to the SquirrelMail repository", so why would translators need  
an account anyway.

d. Well then, I signed in at Sourceforge using a sourceforge account  
and I browsed the SquirrelMail project page.  On the four-link line  
(Summary, Files, Support and Develop) I clicked on Develop.  And then,  
surprise, Develop became a pull-down menu, and three other pull-down  
menus appeared as well (Tracker, Mailing Lists and Code).  I browsed  
these previously hidden menus and at Mailing List I saw  
squirrelmail-i18n.  Searching for the mailing list for translations?   
This had to be the one.  I clicked on it, and found: "Email Archive:  
squirrelmail-i18n (read-only)" Read-only! I still couldn't submit  
anything!  And there's no clue on how to subscribe or either way to  
get something posted.

e. Browsing again in the Tracker menu I found Internationalization.   
There I saw tracker elements used for publishing translations for  
other languages.  It seemed that this had to be the place.  So I added  
a new tracker artifact posting my first SquirrelMail translation (70%  
complete), and added a second artifact reporting the difficulties  
found so far.  This was on November the 15th, 2009 (that's two and a  
half months ago).

f. Time passed, and the tracker artifacts got no answer.  On December  
the 1st, 2009, I created another one posting the translation 100%  
complete.  No answer again, even as of today:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=311&atid=423691

g. About December the 20th, 2009, still without answer, I resorted to  
send a message to the projects first developer, angliss. He told me  
that there was a list for translations but it was closed due to spam.   
angliss advised myself to subscribe to the Development mail list, and  
so it was how I got here.  Once subscribed, I posted a message on  
December 21st, 2009 with the translation file as an attachment:

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=20091221233853.793678ehpmqamfb4%40mail.ati.es&forum_name=squirrelmail-devel


h. It is February the 2nd, 2010, and still no acknowledgement - two  
months and a half past the date I posted my translation for the first  
time.  The new translation isn't in the Translations list at the  
Sourceforge SquirrelMail page, nor at the downloads page in  
squirrelmail.org.

      I'll tell you what's wrong.  It is not the delay between  
versions.  It is the unacknowledgement.

      Unacknowledgment means that I feel uncertain of my work being  
taken care of, and that's no good, but...

      Unacknowledgment also means that the rest of the world doesn't  
know about this new translation.  So at any minute another translator  
may decide to start doing the very same task, translating SquirrelMail  
into the same language.  Remember, The SquirrelMail Translator's  
Manual doesn't prompt the translators for notice before starting to  
work.  And then we would end up having two (or more) translations for  
the same language, which means somebody's effort would be wasted away.  
  And that is definitely bad.  It is bad to have a delay adding a  
translation, but it is worst to risk wasting someone's effort.  I  
think exceeding one months time for acknowledging a new translation is  
going beyond the reasonable.

      And that is everything I wanted to say.  Apart from that,  
there's little that I can add to this project - I even can't make  
tests properly.  So I leave this Development list.  I look forward to  
become a translator for more projects, and hope that get to work with  
PHP in the future again, so I get more proficient in PHP coding and be  
more helpful.  I'll continue to use SquirrelMail and keep an eye on  
new versions.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ignacio Agulló  · www.agullo.tk



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