Translations in Kubuntu still in bad shape
The translations for Kubuntu still suck. I am running KDE 4.3, and there are several string for KDE PIM that are still translated like "%n días" (%n days) instead of "%1 días" (%1 days). It looks to me like some system, Rosetta or whatever, doing a carpet-bombing translation without taking into account the parameters. To make matters worse, last time I checked in Rosetta there were suggestions for those translations, but they were still not approved or not included in the translations.
When are you going to finally fix this? Second-class citizens is a common feeling when using Kubuntu. And for all the arguments I have heard about Rosetta, none has convinced me so far. At least for those packages under the umbrella of the KDE project, which are much better translated in KDE than in Kubuntu.
Sorry for the rant. I know there are some talks going on, but I feel it's time for Kubuntu users to start shouting a little louder about this. Specially when other distros seem to appreciate KDE users a little more.
UPDATE: Just to be clear. The language I'm specifically talking about here is Spanish, which is the most translated language after English, and thus should be the one in best shape. When I found the wrong strings, I went into Rosetta, and found there were suggestions with the right strings. I even suggested a small variation for some of them. Then I called a friend in the Spanish translation team and asked him to approve those strings. Yet, the new version still has those same errors. My point of view is that Ubuntu has no translators using KDE, and they cannot properly test what they translate. Therefore, they should stay away from KDE and use whatever comes to them and stop screwing the work of the i18n KDE teams, giving Kubuntu a bad name in the process.
2nd UPDATE: An update of the language-pack-kde-es last night fixed the strings I was referring to. So, as I said, we better start shouting louder or more often if we want a good Kubuntu. Thank you, translators! Now, please keep Rosetta out of the equation for a while.
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Comments
Those bugs in translation
Those bugs in translation were always driving me crazy. Especially because all other distros had much better and full translations. Ubuntu dev's should stop ***** their own brains by duplicationg community efforts.
openSUSE, a really KDE distro
I was a Kubuntu user since three years ago, but I switched to openSUSE one week ago.
It's not than automagically as Kubuntu because it doesn't configure himself. You need install codecs and drivers by yourself, but only requires one click the .ymp links that are in this website ( http://opensuse-community.org/ ).
Can use KDE 3 with latest distro version (I am using it). The things works fine, Yast is a very very great tool, and KDE isn't slow and buggy as in Kubuntu.
...and can burn DVD without problems! ( https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/31709 )
Try openSUSE!
Unfortunately Novell is no
Unfortunately Novell is no better than Canonical when it comes to KDE. I will stick around for the next version. If they keep flunking on translations and they insist on implemented that mutilated version of notificacions they have for Gnome in Kubuntu, then it's bye bye for me and I will switch to either Debian or Arch Linux.
I love the local Ubuntu community (I'm a forum moderator for the LoCo Team, among other things), but I feel let down with every release. And in the i18n-doc list I have seen the Kubuntu translators as helpless, standing between a rock and a hard place, no decision power at all to do what's best for the distro, having to follow Canonical's orders even to the dismay of Kubuntu.
I wouldn't say that
OpenSUSE has some core KDE devs working for them. Canonical in general doesn't develop much upstream (since they are run on a shoestring budget compared to other commercial distros).
Anyways I don't see this as a Gnome vs. KDE issue. Are the gnome translations really that much better?
For a bloody looooong time, the pretend translations of en-au and en-ca seriously fucked up Amarok 1.4's status bar. And there didn't seem to be anyone who felt responsible to fix it (a trivial fix).
It probably makes some sense for distros to branch translations. Like, sometimes the upstream translator will make up new words rather then use a commonly borrowed English word. Or maybe they can pull in the latest translations before the distro releases, and get better coverage.
But I don't really get what the goal of Rosetta is. Maybe it does good work, but I've only heard about when it fails.
Kubuntu should disable custom translations
Kubuntu should finally disable Ubuntu's custom translation infrastructure. Their translation infrastructure is a nice idea in cases where the adopted projects do little to nothing to foster translation into as many as possible languages. This isn't and never had been the case with KDE, I'd even go so far that KDE's translation infrastructure, while not perfect, is the most progressive one of any software project anywhere. Putting Ubuntu's custom translation infrastructure atop of that is completely counterproductive.
Yes, I think this is a case
Yes, I think this is a case where trying to help makes things worse. For KDE projects they should drop Rosetta altogether and use the vanilla translations, and stop sending us the Gnome translations.
Noise?
The problem is that for some reason the Ubuntu translation team changes the %1 to %n, probably for some Gnomey translation reason. It is most likely that the translations teams are just unaware that, out of the 450,000 strings, a few have been improperly handled, or that out of those strings, one or two of them need %n changed to %1 to work properly.
I would say that if you really want something done about this, that you should file a bug report against the Ubuntu Translations project: (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-translations) I would do it; I know exactly what the problem is (see first paragraph) since we recently went through this with Spanish (https://launchpad.net/bugs/406221). The difference is that I don't know what language you are using, else I would file the bug for you.
So, noise? You could make a bit more yourself. :P
This is Spanish I am talking
This is Spanish I am talking about. The most translated language after English, and it still sucks. Even worse, I went in there, translated the strings that were wrong, got them approved, and 3 months later they are still wrong. So, don't talk about Spanish like you just filed a bug and it got fixed. Sorry to tell you, but it sucks. And I did my homework before writing this rant.
So, it's not noise, it's an outright complaint, because nobody pays attention to us and they keep screwing up. Translation is just one side of it. Bug support is another. Don't even get me started on a dbus bug where only people with gnome got attention because that's what the developer is using.
Re: This is Spanish I am talking about.
Oh, I guess I could have looked up at your blog's banner to find that out, eheh.
Hmm, I guess there wasn't a langpack update for a while after you corrected the translations.
Anyway, I won't talk about Spanish like I just filed a bug and it got fixed. I actually spent a bit more time on it than that. As it turns out, a fe days before the Kubuntu Translations Love Day (set aside for just such a purpose as to improving KDE translations) I browsed the bugs filed against the various language packs. I saw that a %n bug against the Luna Plasma widget was filed. This struck me as a bit odd, as one of those had recently been reported in the trash plasmoid, and a fix committed. A bit unnerved, I corrected the faulty string. A few days later, I found my translation suggestion had been rejected (or gone? I dunno) But instead of giving up and whining about how much the Ubuntu Spanish team sucked, on Kubuntu Translations Love Day I brought up the issue with David Planella, the Ubuntu translations cooridinator. He re-committed the fixed strings and informed the Spanish l10n team that the %1 strings were, in fact, correct.
I was still a bit unnerved that two (and then three) occurances of the bug had popped up, and decided to download the language pack source to do a little grepping. I found that the issue occured several dozen times, and notified David about this. He filed the bug I linked to in my previous comment, and notified the Ubuntu Spanish l10n team (who hopefully know now not to do that crap anymore)
So no, I didn't just file a bug and things magically got fixed. But I didn't just break down communications entirely when miscommunications occured. I took quite a bit of time to make sure that the issue would be taken care of; and surprise, it was.
That being said, if you care to make a difference we would like to have you participate in the next Kubuntu Translations Love Day (there probably will be more in the future, I would imagine). And even if you can't make a translation day, feel free to report bugs as the occur.
In the past, people were mostly ignorant about translation problems; (Or at least ignorant until 2 weeks before the release, where we barely had time to fix anything at all.) it was not a matter of people seeing your complaints and ignoring them; until right before Kubuntu 9.04's release in April most of the developers were ignorant that the issue existed. It's also not fair to compare handling of bugs in one area of Launchpad with another; they are most always handled by different people. More people are aware of the situation now, and people definintely do care. We just need noise in the right places. In fact, just about all the bugs I've filed against Ubuntu Translations in the last tow days have been met with at least some sort of feedback: http://tinyurl.com/kpplcm
So yes, even though communications have not gone smoothly in the past, I would highly recommend speaking out via bug reports when you notice translation errors, or contacting the Ubuntu translation people when miscommunications happen. Something is always better than nothing.
I hope there is progress, but
I hope there is progress, but it is not what I'm seeing. I am running 4.3 final from backports, and the corrections are not there. So, it looks like they managed to break it on release day. Yay!
When it comes to translations, I'm just a user, a disgruntled one. And nothing I have seen from a user point of view suggests the situation is getting better. I will consider filing bugs, but my experience filing bugs is that nothing is done, unless you know the right person. As I said, I even went to Rosetta and fixed the strings myself. Still, the new version is as broken as before. I just feel let down.
When it comes to KMyMoney, as upstream I'm extremely pissed off at the way Ubuntu handles bugs. So much so, that I took over maintaining the bugs in Launchpad myself, and every time I have filed a bug on the stock KMyMoney packages they managed to break, nothing was done, except for closing it after a new release. So, one of our users has to maintain a PPA to have a working KMyMoney version for Ubuntu.
So, from my point of view, Kubuntu is broken, and it won't get fixed unless more people start shouting about it.
Kubuntu is fighting an uphill battle
I think KDE users have gotten less and less consideration with each release. The kubuntu people appear to spend most of their time trying to make the gnome centric features of the distro simply work with KDE, and have no time to actually make the system work nicely. And as a user we continually get shafted when installing something that appears to not be a gnome specific thing, pulls in half the gnome packages (Firefox 3.5 is a good example of this).
I'm continually trying new KDE distro's now and will switch away once I find one I like, perhaps PCLinuxOS when they move to kde4. It's a pity really because the early kubuntu releases were really nice, and even now the buntu distro has features I really like.
This exactly why I ceased using Kubuntu
I felt that , as the release of kde 4.0 approached, that KDE was given much less attention, when bugs piled up for a couple months, and the many gnome dependencies swamping my slow internet connection, I choose to switch to something that doesn't insist on treating KDE as a 2nd class citizen and doesn't force the installation of much of gnome just for firefox (and many other non-gnome related applications).
As far as distro recommendations, I found Opensuse to be quite nice if you prefer gui configuration, Arch Linux (using the kdemod/chakara project kde) is great if you like to configure things "by hand".
Rosetta
The worst thing is, this problem has an incredible simple solution. Dropp the use of Rosetta for KDE. Sincy every other distribution have better and unbroken translations by simply using th KDE upstream translations, the improvment would be quite good. To start with downstream translations are not really a very good idea, and when it are not done right it's a huge flaw.
If Canonical insist on using Rosetta, they should achnowledge the flaws and the problems it creates in the workflow and deploymnet of KDE, and suspend it usage on KDE until the flaws are fixed and they allocate sufficent resources to handle the added workload.