[open-data-manual] Weekly update - move to Github, infrastructure for translations

[Friedrich Lindenberg]

Hi all,

On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 7:54 AM, Tim McNamara <tim.mcnamara at okfn.org> wrote:
> Translations
> =========
>
> https://www.transifex.net/projects/p/open-data-manual/
>
> I have create a Transifex project. This is a site that shares the load
> of translation between all projects that are part of it. That means,
> if we translate the term "Open knowledge is good", every project on
> the site gets to benefit. There are just over 1,500 projects in the
> system.

Rufus and I just had a discussion on this. While I'm sure that
Transifex (or gettext in general) is the best way to do a straight
translation of the manual into another language, I'm not entirely
convinced this is what we want to aim for with the translated
versions: I think it makes little sense to just convert the somewhat
generic English version into a German or French version, in those
cases you do want to add chapters (e.g. on copyright exceptions,
federal structure etc.) that would have no place in the "Global"
edition. Otherwise you need two documents: the translated thing and a
"what this means for X" version. The distinction makes sense for
English, but not languages that are somewhat coupled to a legal
environment.

What do other people think?

- Fr.