String Freeze Policy
As of the string freeze for a release, no new strings or modification of existing strings marked for translation are allowed for packages that are translated from the Fedora Localization Project (ie. ones that Fedora is upstream for). The purpose of the string freeze is to help ensure high quality translations in the final release, by giving translators adequate time to finish their work and to guarantee that this work will end up in the final release.
Breaking the freeze
If you think that you need to break the string freeze, then you should ask for approval from the Fedora Localization Team prior to breaking the freeze. To do so, send an email to trans@lists.fedoraproject.org, CCing rel-eng@lists.fedoraproject.org with the following information:
- A description of what you want to change
- Rationale for why the change is important enough to be allowed in after the string freeze
- Impact of *not* accepting the string at this point of the schedule
The Fedora L10n Steering Committee (potentially with the release team) will evaluate the request and provide feedback. If the string change is rejected, then you'll have to wait for the next development cycle to begin to get the change into Fedora packages. Disputes over rejected changes can be escalated to FESCo .
Approval will come in the form of +1's. Two +1's from Team representatives and/or FLSCo members (without any negative feedback) are necessary to build. If there is negative feedback, conversation will ensue and a new vote will be issued.
Note that ignoring the freeze process and introducing new strings anyway may lead to your package being reverted and a reduction of the chances of an exception being made.