Translation-Community Manager

The Translation Manager leads and co-ordinates the efforts of the Sugar community to enable users to experience Sugar in their own language.

Background

Translation often refers to the specific task of providing text in a target language from the text in the source language. For software, this task is conventionally divided into two steps:

• Internationalization (I10n)

Enable localization in the base software

• Localization (L10n)

Provide local language equivalents for text in the base software

The base software for Sugar consists of two major components:

• Sugar Desktop

The Sugar Desktop is part of a Fedora remix. It provides the basic means for user interaction with Sugar. The Journal activity is a part of the Sugar Desktop.

• Sugar Activities

Sugar provides a library, ASLO (activities.sugarlabs.org) of several hundred individual activities which a user can install and run.

Internationalization (I10n) prepares the Sugar Desktop and Sugar Activities for localization (L10n).

• I10n

Sugar and its activities are primarily written in Python. I10n is supported by giving developers a means to identify text that can be displayed to the user. Alternate text can be provided in other languages than the original and the user can select an alternate language for Sugar and the activities to use in displaying this text.

Selecting an alternate language for Sugar requires other technical steps. The language must be visible in Sugar (Language Control Panel). Selecting the language needs to change other aspects of Sugar (e.g display right-left, handle '.' or ',' for decimals and grouping multiples of 1000, display of dates, and so on).

• L10n

Sugarlabs provides a page: http://translate.sugarlabs.org which supports localization of Sugar. It is based on Pootle, a process and software to facilitate localization. In particular, it stores files with the original text for Sugar and its activities and files with the strings for local languages.

The overall process is fail-safe in the sense that if an alternate language is selected but there is no string available in that language, Sugar displays the original. The translate wiki page saves translated strings which are immediately available for use in subsequent releases - leaving localizers to provide strings for new text in the release. If that text is not provided, the original text is displayed.

Environment

Sugar (Fedora Remix) is the software which supports the OLPC XO laptop. There have been about 2.5 million of these laptops manufactured and distributed. Many of these laptops are in daily use at schools and other institutions throughout the world. Typically, these laptops are used in a language of instruction (English, Spanish, French, ....).

At these schools, many of the users communicate in a native language. For example, in the Philippines, there are two official languages: Filipino (Tagalog) and English. While users can take advantage of Sugar and the laptops in English, they would enjoy an opportunity to use them in Filipino. In addition, there are indigenous languages spoken by some of the users. Making the Sugar experience available in these languages is another localization opportunity.

In most cases localization is done by language specialists under the umbrella of Pootle (http://pootle.translatehouse.org/). This process requires technical skills and effective access to the internet.

Actually, translation requires language skills in the target language and the source language. (e.g. English, Spanish, French). If possible, I10n and specific language help arranged by the Translation Manager should enable Sugar users to perform this localization on their own laptops. The installation or updating of the localization on translate.sugarlabs.org should be arranged by the Translation Manager.

Software Environment

Change is an essential feature of computer use. Platforms change. Sugar is faced with some immediate tasks relating to this change.

• Touch screen replacing trackpad and mouse keys - and, often, the keyboard.
• Move to Android which does not support Python
• Developer focus on html5, css3, and javascript as an implentation environment for activities.

Duties

The Translation Manager, reporting to the SugarLabs Oversight Board, is responsible to lead the community in supporting its goal to provide the Sugar experience in the users own language.

• Work with the community to recruit volunteer help in supporting the translation process.
• Advise the SugarLabs Oversight Board of supporting projects which need funding and to manage these projects, if approved.
• Develop and maintain the I10n capabilities of Sugar and its activities.
  1. Arrange for development and maintenance of I10n infrastructure such as translate.sugarlabs.org
  2. Arrange for an inventory of Sugar activities in ASLO (activities.sugarlabs.org) showing the current I10n and L10n status of each.
  3. Arrange for development and maintenance of I10n infrastructure to support new platforms and software environments for Sugar
• Work with the community to identify schools and institutions which have deployed Sugar and to arrange for members of the community to reach out to these deployments to offer help with localization or other needs.
  1. Arrange as needed to add a language to those with I10n support in Sugar and Sugar activities
  2. Arrange for a simple and well-documented procedure for these deployments to provide their own translation and to share the results with the community.
• Report regularly to the SugarLabs Oversight Board and to the community on the status of the translations program.