Ubuntu Jamming, Catalan style

The Ubuntu Catalan team met yesterday to contribute with their own bit of awesome to the Ubuntu Global Jam.

We run a translation and a packaging/bug-fixing jam and we had an exceptional participation (about 20 people at peak time). Most importantly though, we had a good time.

But let’s just leave the pictures speak for themselves:

The whole crew, showing off their good looks and rearranging the local urban furniture

The crew, busy rocking the place

Beautiful Ubuntu people wearing no less beautiful Ubuntu clothing – notice the evolution in the shirt’s designs throughout releases and parties

Want to see more? Watch the full picture set here.

The event took place at the Citilab computing center in Cornellà, near Barcelona, and we’d like to thank them along with all those who participated in the jam – you truly rocked!

Reunió de l’equip de traducció de l’Ubuntu

Després d’haver-ho comentat a la llista de correu de l’equip de traducció de l’Ubuntu, em plau anunciar la primera reunió de l’equip per demà dimecres:

• QUAN: dimecres, 9 de setembre de 2009, a les 22:00 h
• ON: #ubuntu-cat al servidor de xat IRC Freenode
• AGENDA: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuCatalanTranslators/Reunions/2009-09-09

Aquells que vulgueu afegir qualsevol altre tema a discutir podeu fer-ho editant la pàgina wiki. L’agenda ara com ara potser està atapeïda per a una reunió d’una hora, però si cal es poden traslladar alguns temes a reunions futures.

Voldria fer aquestes reunions més sovint, per la qual cosa també he creat una pàgina general per a poder-les organitzar. Allí també s’hi explica com poder-hi participar:

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuCatalanTranslators/Reunions

I recordeu que la intenció és que les reunions siguin obertes a tothom que tingui interès en la traducció de l’Ubuntu al català, de manera que tant traductors experimentats, com col·laboradors nous o qualsevol amb ganes de saber-ne més seran benvinguts.

Fins demà, doncs

Ubuntu translations for developers on UDW

As part of the Ubuntu Developer Week, do not miss out the session on Translations for developers I’ll have the pleasure to co-host with Launchpad and Ubuntu superheroes Danilo Segan and Martin Pitt.

We’ll be focusing on how the whole translations lifecycle works in Ubuntu, from packaging, to Launchpad, to actual community translation, and expanding the technical bits in between. There will also be plenty of time for anyone to ask all they ever wanted to know about translations and were afraid to ask

• Today at 16:00 UTC on #ubuntu-classroom. Check out this page for more info on joining in.

So come and join us, I’m sure it’s going to be fun!

Kubuntu Translations Day

It’s not a secret that Kubuntu translations have needed love for some time, but it’s not a secret that we want to make Kubuntu Karmic a rock-solid release on translations, either.

So, what’s this?

We’d like to get Kubuntu translations in shape for Karmic and we’re organising a whole day event with this purpose.

• WHAT: Kubuntu Translations Day
• WHERE: #kubuntu-devel IRC channel on Freenode
• WHEN: Wednesday, the 29th of July 2009

How can I participate?

You simply need to join us on #kubuntu-devel on that day and be willing to make Kubuntu translations rock!

Here are some suggestions for activities you can do.

If you are a:

• Translator
  • Help getting the Karmic translation templates in shape
  • Find untranslated or non-translatable Kubuntu applications or messages and report bugs against the Ubuntu Translations project
  • Report or fix Kubuntu other i18n/l10n bugs
  • Submit fixes and translations upstream
  • Translate!
• User
  • If you know your language is well translated upstream but you find untranslated Kubuntu applications, come and tell us at #kubuntu-devel or report it at the Ubuntu Translations project
  • Are messages not well translated in your language? Come and tell us! You can also provide better suggestions if you like
  • Have you ever thought of joining a K/Ubuntu translation team and become a full-fledged translator? Well, the time is now!
• Developer
  • Report or fix Kubuntu i18n/l10n bugs
  • Help documenting the Kubuntu translations lifecycle
  • Help users and translators with their questions
  • Who said that developers couldn’t translate? Have you ever considered joining a K/Ubuntu translation team?

You’ll find this same list of suggestions on the Ubuntu wiki, so please feel free to modify it and expand it with more ideas if you like.

We’ll be at #kubuntu-devel all day and we’ll be happy to answer all your questions on how to help.

Hope to see you there next week!

Karmic translations…

… are now open.

For more information check out the announcement.

Happy translating !

Looking back

Time does really fly.

In a few days it will be 3 months since I started at Canonical, so I thought this might be a good time to stop for a second and post a quick recollection of my work and experiences so far.

What I’ve been doing

• People: I’ve been working very closely with my awesome team and with some other equally awesome people. All of them and many others have been really helpful in making me feel welcome and in getting up to speed with the internal processes and workflows. Thank you very very much, guys!. It is really inspiring to see people being driven by and working very hard in something they strongly believe in. If that alone weren’t enough, they also make a difference in what they do. Now, how cool is that?
• Allhands: my first time at the Canonical Allhands meeting was (for the lack of more adjectives to describe awesomeness) an amazing experience. Seeing the gathering of so many incredible individuals made me think it’s no wonder we’ve gotten so far.
• UDS: this time we had a good representation on translations at UDS, and we talked a lot about them. Well, that’s only the beginning! Expect to have more and more of that in the next UDSs. You can see a picture of the whole translations crew showing off their good looks in Milo’s post here.
• Feedback, feedback, feedback: apart from direct feedback at UDS, I’ve been running a survey on the Ubuntu Translations Community and another one on Launchpad Translations. Stay tuned for more updates on this.
• UNR: as part of the process of making the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) available to the community, I’ve been working with the OEM team to also make its translations available to Ubuntu Translators, so that end users can benefit of their fantastic work in localising Ubuntu. All the credit for the hard work in making this happen goes to Kyle Nitzsche from the Canonical OEM team – and to the Launchpad Translations team for their assistance as well.
• Meetings: following the example of many other communities within Ubuntu, I believe translators will greatly benefit in having a dedicated space to discuss anything around translations in real time and with a specific agenda. It is all about improving and promoting communication, and that’s why we’re starting the Ubuntu Translations meetings.

…and many other bits and pieces.

What’s coming up

• Roadmap: I’ve been summarising all the direct feedback and that from the surveys and I’ll be working in using this as my roadmap for Ubuntu translations. More on this soon.
• Jams: the upcoming Ubuntu Global Jam is going to include translations this time (and more!). Remember to start adding your events on here.
• Again, meetings: did I mention the meetings? Yes, I’m pretty excited about them, and I’m sure they will make a huge difference in the Ubuntu translations community. The first one will be:
  • this Thursday, the 2nd of July at 15:00 UTC at #ubuntu-meeting on Freenode.
• Karmic translations: will be opening soon!

What else?

Finally, here’s a question to you folks:

• I’d like to hear more of your thoughts: in which areas do you think I should focus my work on translations?

It’s all about communication

One of the things we talked about in the translations roundtables at the last UDS was about having better communications and a more transparent translations process.

I’d like to make Karmic the best release in translations so far, and I’d like people to be able to meet and discuss anything related to Ubuntu translations in real time.

The idea is, if there are any translations issues (imports not working, critical upstream/downstream translation bugs, new packages for translation, etc.) we can talk about them in a fluent way and catch them early in the process.

Or if you’ve got any suggestions or ideas related to Ubuntu translations, they are also always welcome.

With this in mind, I’ve kicked off regular translation meetings on #ubuntu-meeting every two weeks, starting on the 2nd of July:

• WHAT: Ubuntu Translations Meeting
• WHERE: #ubuntu-meeting
• WHEN: starting on Thu 2nd Jul 2009 15:00 UTC, every two weeks on Thursdays

One of the first topics on the agenda will be the opening of Karmic translations, but feel free to add more topics you’d like to discuss either on comments here or on our Ubuntu Translators mailing list.

I’m looking forward to seeing you there!

P.S. And also remember we’ve also got other communication channels for everything around translating Ubuntu.

Image: communication by loop_oh (some rights reserved)

The Ubuntu Global Jam…

… now with Translations.

As you probably know, we are going to have a massive Ubuntu Global Jam, and we’ll be expanding it to Translations this time around.

So you wanted to get involved in Ubuntu and to deliver it to millions in their own language, I hear? This will be your chance:

• WHAT: Ubuntu Global Jam: Translations
• WHEN: the 2nd to 4th October 2009 weekend
• PREPARATIONS: Third Thursday of every month (next meeting is Thu 18th June 2009 at 18:00 UTC) at #ubuntu-meeting on Freenode

I’ve started a section on running translation jams in our wiki, and I’ll be adding more content there in the next few weeks, so stay tuned for updates.

Wow, there’s even some folks who have already started translating the jam pages themselves!

Fantastic.

Ubuntu Netbook Remix in your language

I wanted to let you know of a project which probably won’t be new to the most of you.

Ubuntu Netbook Remix (in short, UNR) is a sleek, easy to use and yet powerful version of Ubuntu aimed at netbook devices and… well of course, human beings.

What you might not have known is that as with Ubuntu, you can translate and use UNR in your very own language. The UNR project has already been translated to some 36 languages, but there are still some in need of love.

So, if you are a speaker of Belarusian, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Dhivehi, Estonian, Filipino, Hindi, Irish, Lithuanian, Nepali, Serbian, Vietnamese, Welsh, Xhosa, Zulu or any of these other languages without a translation already, here’s what you can do to make UNR speak your tongue:

• Contact your localisation team and let them know you’d like to translate UNR. They will help you getting up to speed on how they work and on how to use Launchpad Translations.

And who knows, maybe when you’ve finished you might feel like translating some more of these other awesome projects!

Other interesting projects to translate:

• UbuntuOne client

Launchpad Translations Feedback

Launchpad Translations is the collaborative tool you can use to translate Ubuntu and other software into almost any language. Whether you are using it as a regular translator, as an upstream project maintainer or as an occasional contributor, we’d like to hear from you. Your feedback will help us to keep in touch with the community and to assess areas in which we can improve.

With this in mind, I’d like to ask you to participate in the Launchpad Translations Survey 9.10 and to tell us what you think:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=R0mTjKlIjUc2H_2b8kMjF6fg_3d_3d

The survey will be open for 2 weeks, after which I will be collecting the data. If you’d like to take part in it, please make sure you send your answers by Monday, the 22nd of June.

Thanks for helping us make Launchpad Translations better!

Image: Language variety on Cadbury’s choc, by nofrills (some rights reserved)