Changes/Translation platform migration to Weblate

Translation platform migration to Weblate

Summary

This migration was decided at Flock 2019 in Budapest, it is mandatory as development and maintenance of Zanata — the previous translation platform — ceased in 2018. More information are available here: https://communityblog.fedoraproject.org/fedora-localization-platform-migrates-to-weblate/

Link to release process is to make sure the information is spread across all dependent projects, including Documentation and Websites.

Owner

• Owner: the L10N group (#fedora-i18n^[?])
• Primary contact: Jean-Baptiste Holcroft
• Email: localization mailing list

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora 32
• Last updated: 2020-04-04
• Tracker bug: #1773285
• Release notes tracker: not needed

Detailed Description

Make sure all existing Zanata project have been informed (upstream ticket created) and that all priority packages have migrated.

We created a template for L10N_Move_to_Weblate/Message_for_upstream_project. The list of priority packages is defined in Zanata, it contains websites, anaconda, dnf and many others...

Benefit to Fedora

First objective is to lower the risk of having no translation platform if Zanata crashes.

Second objective is to provide a suited tool for localization community to be part of our processes again:

• be closer to upstream activity by directly interacting with git repositories
  • this also lower upstream requirements to interact with our translation platform (no dependencies required as it interact with git repos)
  • this helps upstream to see localization contributions
  • this allows translator to get notification when new strings are added
• be able to localize our documentation (we decided to make it compatible with Weblate directly)
• the tool will publish on Fedora messaging
  • allows community statistics
  • allows badges creation

Scope

• Proposal owners: Open a ticket for each upstream project.

• Other developers: answer the message for upstream project and eventually create appropriate git repositories:

Questions to answer by upstream
Hello, the Fedora project migrates its translation platform to Weblate [1].

This tool directly interact with your git repository, and requires us to know:

• [mandatory] which branch is your development branch?
• [mandatory] have you merged latest translation from Zanata and locked the project?
• [info] Weblate will handle updates when pot file changes, don't edit po files for this [2]
• [optional] what is the license of translation? (please use a code from https://spdx.org/licenses/)
• [optional] do you have any announcement/warning you would like to display to the translators? (it will be displayed in Weblate)
• [optional] do you need us to activate any specific checks? (this is a setting per component [3])
• [optional] do you need us to automatically detect new translation files? (typical usecase: website translation with one translation file per page)

Please note:

• For github and gitlab hosted projects, Weblate open pull request. For other git hosting, you'll have to add a key to allow commits.
• In Weblate's vocable, one project is a group of component. Each component is a translation file. You can have many projects or many components or both.
• You can change your mind over time, just reach trans@lists.fedoraproject.org

[1] https://communityblog.fedoraproject.org/fedora-localization-platform-migrates-to-weblate/ [2] https://docs.weblate.org/en/latest/admin/continuous.html#avoiding-merge-conflicts

[3] https://docs.weblate.org/en/latest/user/checks.html#translation-checks

• Release engineering: #8947

• Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)

• Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

Upgrade/compatibility impact

N/A (this change impacts our processes, not our deliverable)

How To Test

For projects using the translation platform: make sure translation commits are part of the release included in Fedora 32.

Example for DNF:

• Open the DNF git repository
• Find folder containing localization file (usually the po folder)
• Look at commit history and search for, commits will start with: "Translated using Weblate" (example with French language on ibus typing booster

User Experience

No impact.

Dependencies

N/A (not a System Wide Change)

Contingency Plan

• Contingency mechanism: Localization team will keep using Zanata
• Contingency deadline: N/A (not a System Wide Change)
• Blocks release? Yes, if websites and priority packages do not use the new translation platform.
• Blocks product? Yes

Documentation

L10N Move to Weblate