Introduction

Launchpad handles differently translations for projects (e.g. [https://translations.edge.launchpad.net/exaile Exaile]) and distributions (e.g. [https://translations.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu Ubuntu]).

The main difference between the two is that, right now, project translation templates are uploaded by the project maintainer, while distribution templates are imported into Launchpad automatically by a script.

Distribution templates get updated all the time, whenever a new package enters one of the distributions being tracked by Launchpad Translations, like Ubuntu Dapper for example. Distribution templates are optimal translation targets if you want a given distribution release to be very well covered in your language.

Project templates are updated when the responsible person for the project does it by hand, when they think is appropriate (for example, when a release is near to happen). They might be tracking a development branch that isn't yet being used by distributions, or might be the recipient where submitted translations will be used for the next stable release, due in the following three days, which will be used in most of the development versions of the different Free Software distributions.

Importing project translations into Launchpad

When someone is interested in having a project translated in Launchpad, they have to request this translation to be set up for the first time. After this initial setup, the product owner will be able to upload new translation templates and new translation files whenever they need to, without requiring any Launchpad administrator intervention.

In the past, we have been quite flexible when uploading project templates requested by a user. This created some problems with some program authors who found that their programs were being re-translated on Launchpad without them knowing.

This is why the current policy imposes some conditions before translations can be accepted. The current policy is what we think will make translations in Launchpad as useful as they can be, and upstream authors as productive as possible in the i18n front of their development. It will also help us minimise the chance of getting stale products registered by Launchpad users which at some point are not taking care of updating the files or project information.

In order to import a new project for translation in Launchpad, the requester needs to contact the upstream authors of the project, and tell them about his plans. We suggest using the mail template at the end of this page.

If they agree to use Launchpad as their infrastructure for translation, the project's translation will be marked as "Launchpad official", and the upstream author will be the project owner.

Being an "official" Launchpad-translated project means that the authors of the project delegate the job of dealing with translations to translators who use Launchpad. They will just have to post new versions of their templates, and collect the fruits of translators' work before their release.

We also consider projects using Launchpad Translations as an auxiliary source of data, which is mixed with the translations they get by other means (directly in their source repositories, etc.). This use case currently fits in the "Launchpad official" group, but it is the responsibility of the project owner to make an effort to avoid duplication of work (ie, two persons translating to the same language, one on Launchpad and the other elsewhere).

If the upstream authors do not agree, we won't import the package into a project. We want to avoid upsetting upstream authors, and inviting people to create some translations that may never get integrated in the official tarballs.

In this case, if that same product exists in the Ubuntu distribution, it will be possible to translate it through the distribution templates. That path only guarantees that the translations will appear in the next Ubuntu release.

Translations for projects belonging to organizations with an already established translation infrastructure, such as Debian or GNU, are handled in a special way. In general, requests to import such products won't be accepted unless the translator coordinator for that project agrees on using Launchpad for their language.

In this case, the translator(s) will be added to the relevant translators group, such as ([https://launchpad.net/translations/groups/gnu-translators/ GNU translators], for example), the templates will be imported and will be assigned to this group. Members of GNU Translators will be composed strictly of people already belonging to the upstream translator group, as the [http://translationproject.org/ Translation Project] (used by GNU projects), and will be added by request of the language's team leader.

KDE and GNOME will be always imported automatically from the data in their CVS/Subversion repositories, and the project templates will be assigned to [https://launchpad.net/translations/groups/gnome-translation-project/ GNOME translators] and KDE translators, respectively. Again, only people who are members of the KDE and GNOME official translation teams will be able to commit translations to those products. Other contributions will be accepted into the database as "Suggestions", which might or might not end up appearing in GNOME or KDE releases. The automatic mass-import of upstream KDE and GNOME is being planned, but isn't implemented yet.

This allows some language teams to use Launchpad without opening the doors to duplication of work for the rest of the teams.

For those distribution translations to be picked up by upstream authors and integrated in their repositories, Ubuntu maintainers need to send them directly to them, or they can download them from Launchpad if they want. The most effective way is to have someone from the upstream team taking care of updating the templates regularly in a launchpad project.

Example mail template

Dear maintainer,

I am interested in translating your application X into the language L, and have noticed you don't have an established translation framework.

I've been translating other programs using Launchpad Translations, an advanced web-based translation portal which is being developed by Canonical (Ubuntu Linux's parent company). Launchpad seems an advantageous choice for small/medium Free Software projects like yours, as it allows you to trivially avoid the legwork involved in making your application available in as many languages as possible.

With Launchpad, you would just need to publish a "translation template"--in the form of a .pot file--via a web form when it best suits you (for example, when your next version is feature complete).  Once published in Launchpad Translations, it would be made available to a body of dozens of Free Software enthusiasts who would be then able to translate it.  When you're ready to release your next version, you would request an 'export' of all the available translations, which you would get in a tar.gz archive.

Launchpad Translations is under continuous development, and features are being added and improved every week.  It is and will always be free of charge for free software projects.  For me, it would make translating your application very easy.

You can learn more about Launchpad Translations at <https://translations.launchpad.net/>.

Thank you,