• 6 new localizations added with the release of Firefox 3.0.4!

    October 25th, 2008 by seth bindernagel with 1 comment »

    I’m sitting here with a lot of the Mozilla Europe Localization community and should be listening more closely to Pike, who is giving a presentation on testing localizations…but I had to share this news.  :)

    Check out this bug, which lands six new languages to Firefox with the release of FF 3.0.4.

    We’ve added the new localization for users in the following locales:

    • Bulgarian
    • Esperanto
    • Estonian
    • Latvian
    • Occitan
    • Welsh

    Congratulations to Ogi (bg), Eduardo (eo), Sander (et), Raivis (lv), Yannig (oc), and Dewi & David (cy) for all your hard work!!  You’re now officially shipping Firefox…well, soon, when FF 3.0.4 is released.  :)

    Special thanks to Pike for driving the technical aspects of this release, Stas who managed the web services of this release, and Pascal on webparts.  This the first release that Stas managed, so please send us some feedback.  I think he did a great job.  Finally, Gandalf stepped in sometime around 5 AM the day before the release to write a few patches and check in the code.  It was a real team process…

    Now the fun stuff.  The numbers!

    With these new localizations, 94.29%* of the World’s Internet population is covered by Firefox 2 and 3.

    *  Remember when I explained how Gerv created this model and we used it to measure impact?  I still need to make this model more complete; caveat emptor, this is not the most accurate analysis…but I think it’s very close.

  • Localization schedule for Firefox 3.1 Beta 2

    October 15th, 2008 by seth bindernagel with 4 comments »

    I posted this message to the dev-l10n mailing list, but if you did not see it there or do not subscribe to that list, here is a secondary posting.

    The string freeze for the Firefox 3.1 beta 2 is going to be Thursday, October 30 at 11:59 PM (Mountain View, CA time), which is just over two weeks from now.  Code freeze will be Tuesday, November 4 (Mountain View, CA time) at 11:59 PM.

    https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox3.1/StatusMeetings/2008-10-15#Firefox_3.1

    If you did not make FF 3.1 beta 1, we would love for you to participate in the next beta release.  The l10n-drivers team has a goal of a fully-localized beta, so please let us know what we can do to help you as you get in beta 2.  We are here to help you so please just ask.

    Here are some important resources for you to check:

    *  Pike’s l10n dashboard:  http://l10n.mozilla.org/dashboard/
    *  L10n Tinderbox:  http://tinderbox.mozilla.org/showbuilds.cgi?tree=Mozilla-l10n
    *  Mercurial tips and tools:  http://developer.mozilla.org/En/L10n_on_Mercurial

    If you run into problems, please ask for help in the dev-l10n group, on #l10n, or on #hg.  You can always comment on this blog or email me.

    Just like last time, we would love volunteers who participated in beta 1 to mentor other localizers.  If you’re feeling comfortable with hg and have some cycles, please follow up on this thread and offer your help.  :)

    Finally, many thanks to the localization teams who participated in localizing FF 3.1 beta 1.  Congratulations!  That was the highest number of locales to participate in a beta 1.  We shipped FF 3.1b1 yesterday and you can see the list of participating locales here:

    http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

    It’s a pleasure working with you all, so please ping me directly with questions or requests for help.  I want to hear from you.

  • Data regarding the Firefox 3 beta testing community of localizations

    October 7th, 2008 by seth bindernagel with 3 comments »
    This past summer, our summer intern Blake Cutler spent a lot of time analyzing data about the localization community.  One thing he examined was the size of our l10n beta testing community across various locales.  With the upcoming release of Firefox 3.1 Beta 1, I thought I would share a series of charts that show us a bit of that information leading up to the release of Firefox 3.  The charts reference “AUS ping” data.  For an explanation of that, I’ve linked to a long post by John Lilly where he describes the “application update service“.  (Just search for it, it’s in the body of the long post.)
    Keep in mind that the data visualized below shows information about some, but not all of our localization communities.  It would be very difficult to create a meaningful chart that shows information on every locale.  The first chart shows the number of downloads of Firefox 3 beta in May, 2008.  The information is presented with daily AUS pings on the horizontal axis and monthly Firefox 3 downloads on the vertical axis.  (Apologies for the size of these charts.  Please use your Full Page Zoom feature to get a larger view.)
    This next chart is just a zoom into that bottom left corner.  Same data, just closer…
    And, a little bit closer….
    When I saw these charts, one question came to mind.  How can we grow our localization communities so all localizers can benefit from having thousands of beta users?  I am really looking for some comments or other interpretations of this data. What else would you like to know?  We used Google motion charts to generate the information.  Perhaps we can look at the data to get some new information.  Not sure, but tell me and we can try it.

  • A little on the l10n beta 1 roll call…

    October 1st, 2008 by seth bindernagel with 4 comments »

    Last night was the code freeze for Firefox 3.1’s first beta.  The l10n-drivers team posted the call for participation and watched locales roll in one-by-one all the way up to the 11:59 PM deadline (Mountain View, CA time).

    Have you ever been a part of one of these releases?  Here’s a bit of how it works…

    On September 10, Axel made the first call for participation in localizing FF 3.1 Beta 1.  Time went by as our localizers prepared their localizations, dealing with new complexities like migrating all their prior efforts to the new code repository, translating newly added strings, and learning how to use Hg.  We answered questions along the way and helped when prompted.

    On September 29, Axel made another announcement about Firefox 3.1, this time calling for our teams to “opt-in” to the official release process for the first beta.  We were down to a few days left and people needed to start sending us their work.

    By looking at the L10n dashboard (click on “Fx31x” in the Tree section, and the “35″ in the Result section), we were able to see the locales that were closest to finishing up, but hadn’t quite gotten into the process.  Stas and I started emailing teams directly who were close.  We compiled the teams who had unbroken, green localized builds of Firefox, but who had yet to opt-in to the release process.  Then, we gathered all those who had broken, red builds because they had missing strings.  I emailed each team with updates and asked them to opt-in if possible.

    At this point, we started to see the locales roll in.  One can’t help but feel a bit of pride and a little thrill as our localizers stand up to the challenge.  The l10n-drivers sit back and watch.

    Then, my mind starts to drift to a galaxy far, far away….

    I’m always reminded of this scene in Star Wars. (30 seconds in)

    In the clip, all wings report in…red 10, 7, 3, 6, 9, 2, 11, and 5…one-by-one with some excitement and pride.  As we approach code freeze, localizers will chime in much the same fashion.

    • “fr locale is opting in, patchset a7c003554f46″
    • “please add sk too, changeset f3fb0018a3b”
    • “hu locale is opting in, patchset 279d4db75211″
    • “es-AR opting-in, changeset e35e14d53ef0″
    • “ru locale is opting in, patchset a86d6547da37″

    and so on…

    And, just like the Jedi master Obie-wan, Axel will drop in a whisper with sage advice along the way…

    (best read with Obie-wan whisper)

    “…that build has missing strings…”

    “…if you get the changeset into my queue, you’re fine, but I wouldn’t fall over if I missed out on this…”

    “…you can land, and we’ll tag and release with the given changesets….”

    When code finally froze (like a tauntaun on the planet Hoth), we had 36 locales* participating!  I believe that’s the most we’ve had in the first beta of a new version of the Firefox browser.

    Congratulations to the localizers!  It’s truly an accomplishment that shows the commitment and dedication of our community.  I’m proud to be a part of it.

    * see the comment field…