Credited Suggestions

[Jeroen Vermeulen]

Arne Goetje wrote:

> Once the sync/merge is done, the new translations will be imported into
> Rosetta and supersede older entries in case the same string has been
> translated into the same language before.

The one problem there is that those imports do not supersede older 
entries.  This is because there are two valid reasons why Ubuntu package 
translations may diverge from the upstream ones:

#1 Something may need to be translated differently in Ubuntu, e.g. 
because of differences in translation standards.  This is where Ubuntu 
translations really "fork," and these changes we'll generally want to 
keep when upstream translations are updated.

#2 Upstream translations may be incomplete, or occasionally, have real 
mistakes.  Launchpad makes it possible to fix those locally first.  Of 
course we hope that these translations will also go upstream, but beyond 
the "Download translations" option and the view filters for Ubuntu 
changes, there is no central mechanism to do that.

Ideally, translation reviewers will keep the upstream translations 
wherever possible and keep the divergence to a minimum.  We're working 
on better documentation and we have plans for facilities that make it 
easier to take just the changes upstream for review and reuse.  The big 
limitation is engineering time!

(For projects that do use Launchpad, it's easier: "#1" translations 
should all go to the Ubuntu package and ideally, "#2" translations would 
all go straight to the upstream project.  It won't be that ideal in 
practice, but the suggestions system helps make up the difference).


Jeroen