L10N tools: Increase quality of translations

[Bill Nottingham]

Dimitris Glezos (dimitris at glezos.com) said: 
>   * Integrate better the handling of translation during a "local" package's
> lifecycle. Have a flag raised for a package update that introduces new strings
> so that translators can translate the new strings before the
> repackaging/updating. Include in the schedule for each release a "string freeze
> date" and a week later a "translation freeze date" and have all our packages
> rebuilt after the latter and before the actual release.

String freezes are easy to do, it's just a matter of discipline
in sticking to them.

>   * Move po files on their own cvsroot on cvs.fedoraproject.org to reduce
> complexity and maintenance and to increase security (with a new group).

>From a maintainer standpoint, the translations *need* to
be in the same SCM system as the code. Without that, you lose features
like branching, easy spinning of tarballs, etc. Moving just the
po files is not the answer.

>   * Start working with the complex and tricky path to upstream translations that
> no distribution has tackled yet in a successful way. Bring our translators
> closer to the upstream projects.

Well, the simple answer is if you want to translate upstream,
go upstream. For desktop environments, such as GNOME or KDE,
this is fairly easy. For other projects, it is more complicated.

Bill