Introduction
Welcome to Fedora Localization Guide. On this page, you will find instructions on how to join our translation team and start the translations for our projects, documentation, wiki and websites to make a more friendly Fedora for all regions.
If you find a typographical error in this manual, or if you have thought of a way to make this manual better, please feel free to either edit the page directly or simply send an email to the Fedora Localization Project mailing list. If you have a suggestion for improving the documentation, try to be as specific as possible when describing it. If you have found an error, please include the section number and some of the surrounding text so we can find it easily.
Getting Help
For help, we suggest you registering to our main trans mailing list and also recommend subscribing to mailing list of the team you want to join or ask for help in your native language. Please refer to our list of mailing lists: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/
The teams follow this naming schema: trans-TEAM. For example, trans-fr for French, or trans-it for Italian. You can also ask for help via Internet Relay Chat (IRC), at #fedora-g11n[?] channel on freenode, where you will find people from different teams in the same space.
Becoming a Fedora Translator
To be a Fedora Translator you need to follow the following steps:
- Create a Fedora Account
- Subscribe to the Main Mailing List
- Subscribe to your Team's Mailing List
- Introduce Yourself
- Login into Weblate with Your FAS Credentials
Your self-introduction is important. It raises your chances to be approved for write access. You may also want to create a Bugzilla account to work on bugs reported by users.
Creating a Fedora Account
The steps below guide you through the creation of a Fedora Account.
Applying for an Account
- To sign up for a Fedora account, first visit https://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts and select New Account.
- Fill in Username, Full Name and Email, and click Sign up!. Your password will be e-mailed to you.
- Go back to https://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts and login with your password. The welcome page will be displayed, and it reminds you that CLA is not completed.
- Telephone Number: and Postal Address: fields are also required to fill in for signing the CLA. These information is NOT accessible by others except admin groups. Please refer to Fedora Privacy Policy at Legal:PrivacyPolicy.
- Other fields will be displayed by any other member by visiting the user's view page.
- Now click Save! button located at the bottom of this page to save your information.
Signing the CLA
You must complete the Contributors License Agreement, or CLA.
- Visit https://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts and login to your account using your username and password obtained from the previous process.
- In the welcome page, click complete the CLA or go to https://admin.fedoraproject.org/accounts/user/edit.
- If the information of telephone number and postal address have not been provided yet, the Edit Account (user_name) page will be appeared. Otherwise Fedora Contributor License Agreement page will be displayed. Read through the agreement carefully and click I agree if you are happy to do so.
- The user-view page is appeared and shows the CLA: field as CLA Done.
Joining the cvsl10n Group
This step will introduce other Fedora contributors that you're part of the translation team.
- In the Fedora account select Group List
- Search and apply for cvsl10n group
Wait for the sponsor approval, this step is part of process Becoming a Fedora Translator.
Subscribe to the main L10N mailing list and local L10N mailing list
- Main L10N mailing list
- Visit trans and subscribe to the main translation mailing list.
- Wait for the confirmation email which contains a link to confirm your subscription. Click the link to confirm your subscription.
- Your local language L10N mailing list
- Check L10N/Teams to join mailing list for your language.
- Subscribe to the mailing list for your language.
- Wait for the confirmation email which contains a link to confirm your subscription. Click the link to confirm your subscription.
Introduce yourself
- Create a personal page at User:Username. This is very useful for Fedora contributors to get to know and contact each other. Because of spam problem, you'll need to be added L10N FAS group to do this step.
- Post a short self introduction to the trans mailing list and to the list of your local team with instructions from L10N Self introduction. Please remember to include your FAS username and your language. With this information, your language coordinator can identify you and approve you as a translator on his team.
Login to Weblate with your FAS account
Fedora L10N platform had been migrated from Zanata to Weblate since the end of 2019. Please visit this link to access Weblate https://translate.fedoraproject.org/. For details of translating on Weblate, please read the wiki page Translate on Weblate.
Online/Offline Translation Using Weblate
Visit L10N/Translate_on_Weblate for more info.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
Here are some FAQs about the Localization Project.
Should I translate legal notices? (#legal-notices)
No. You must never do that. The exact wording of the legal notices is very important and a translation not approved by lawyers is very risky. Red Hat is the legal representative and primary sponsor of the Fedora Project and does not have the resources to cross check every single translation. Just leave the original English notice intact when it covers legal matters.
How do I report issues? (#reporting-issues)
Before reporting (either opening a new ticket or on the list), please search to see if there's an existing report opened. It sometimes helps to ask on #fedora-g11n[?] if there's a known issue at that exact moment. If not, please open a ticket describing what's wrong with the service in clarity. Include the nature of the problem, the project/resource, the time (in UTC) it happened and your Fedora username. If you suspect it might be a problem with the particular file you are uploading or the target file, include that information as well.
Where do I report issues?
- Issues specific to Fedora L10N should be first reported on #fedora-g11n[?] IRC channel and then on the trans-XX mailing list. (Replace trans-XX with your L10N team's mailing list name. Seek your team's name at: L10N Teams page.)
- These include team questions, releases, projects, Fedora maintainers, developers etc.
How do I create a new team? (#new-team)
See L10N Coordinator on how to become a coordinator of a new language.
My file is 100% but when I test the application I still see English strings! (#missing-strings)
This wasn't a question, by the way. Never mind. The following might have gone wrong:
- The strings in question have not been marked for translation by the developer, hence they haven't been included in the POT file, and thus not in the PO file. He needs to use gettext on them.
- The source files of these strings have not been marked for inclusion, in the intltool case.
- The POT file on Weblate is not up to date. The component page includes the date when the POT file has been produced. If this is more than a few hours in the past, please notify the admins, otherwise it should be OK.
Is the section of export regulations shown at the bottom of the https://getfedora.org/workstation/download/ page translatable? (#export-regulations)
No. This is purposely set up as non-translatable. Please refer to Non-translatable export regulations?.
If some string changes miss string freeze, how do I request a string freeze breakage? (#breaking-freeze)
Email the trans mailing list!
How to create a Bugzilla account? (#creating-bugzilla)
If you are asked to use Bugzilla, create an account by visiting https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/createaccount.cgi.