[maemo-developers] Maemo localization to officially non-supported languages

[From: Quim Gil]

Hi Jordi,

On Thu, 2007-10-18 at 21:20 +0200, ext Jordi Mas wrote:
> Is there any way to translate the UI into a language not supported
> directly by Nokia?
> 
> If not, I would be possible from the community to localize the different
> individual PO files, build a deb pack for this language and deploy it?

As other have pointed out, there are annoyances and obstacles. I'm happy
to help trying to remove them, though.

http://flors.wordpress.com/2007/10/22/how-to-bring-community-l10n-to-the-maemo-platform/ but copied here for convenience:

The current system based on logical strings and not on standard open
source practices is open for change though, or at least not-closed to
changes. In fact I’m willing to push this feature to the maemo roadmap.
A problem here are the implications any change has on code, processes,
licensing and such. Nothing that couldn’t be done but since the basic
L10n is covered, other features tend to get higher priority and
attention.

Like in other major features, showing interest, lobbying and providing
winning arguments help the internal advocates increasing their priority
and relevance in our planning work.

Two questions that float around are:

a) What is the real interest for L10n in the maemo community? What
unsupported languages (could) have translators putting pressure, what
apps (could) be pushing already L10n forward, what projects like the CJK
support (could) be expanding already L10n beyond Nokia’s list of
supported languages? (see below)

b) Since the feature is about community translation, should it be
complemented by any kind of community tools for translation? How to
reuse what is already translated and how to orchestrate the rest.
Different open source projects have different ways of organizing
translations (see for instance GNOME or Ubuntu). We should find the way
suiting our needs best.

So what do you want? What do you need? Getting into details is
appreciated. All the better if it’s in a wiki page several people can
edit, and that is linked from maemo’s roadmap wishlist.

FYI the OS2008 supports Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, English
American, English British, Finnish, French, French Canadian, German,
Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Latin American Spanish
and Swedish. The Nokia N810 hardware keyboard has the following
variants: English, German, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish-Portuguese
and Scandinavian.

-- 
Quim Gil - http://maemo.org