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Frequently Used Entries for Localization (FUEL)
Rajesh Ranjan is one of our lead localizers in India. Aside from working to complete the Hindi translation of Firefox, Rajesh does a lot of community organizing and outreach to open source enthusiasts around localization efforts.
He recently held a workshop to disuss a new effort called FUEL: Frequently Used Entries for Localization. Rajesh describes FUEL in a blog post with the following:
“…all major desktop related entries [needing localization] appearing on menus and sub-menus are not more than five-six hundred. So if we move to standardize a mere 500-600 entries and the process is backed by the active localizers and entities who get benefit from localization then we can make a successful move against the problem of standardization and inconsistency in software translation. This is the main idea behind FUEL.”
To learn more about FUEL, please read this post by Rajesh. And, here is one more link about FUEL.
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Some thoughts on Mozilla l10n
In the past couple days, the Mozilla’s dev-l10n mailing list has seen a thread of conversation asking about how Mozilla chooses languages that are shipped and what can be done to improve the process. I thought I’d write a bit on the incredibly hard work that goes into localizing and what might constitute plan for Mozilla post Firefox 3.
Mozilla relies on the volunteer contributions from a very dedicated community of localizers who work so hard to meet Mozilla’s standards of perfection. Contributors who choose to localize work with us to meet that standard and we do the best we can to meet their needs inside the pressures of release cycles. In fact, I wrote a post about the process several months back and illustrated it with some slides.
The Mozilla process is not perfect, but we hold high standards for user experience and expectations for Mozilla Firefox. We choose to ship our official, non language-pack locales only when they are ready as a bug-free experience for the end-user. Because of this, the process is very elaborate, detail-oriented, and complex. (see my linked to post above…)
With the help from those volunteers, we released Firefox 3 in a coordinated effort that included simultaneously shipping official versions of the browser in 46 locales. Two more are in beta status. And, 20+ language packs that can be installed in the browser as addons. That is incredible work from around 70 different translation teams. In fact, over 100 such highly-motivated teams have stepped forward to work at this on Mozilla projects over the last 10 years.
Internet Explorer 7 simultaneously shipped its major release in one locale…English.
Now that Firefox 3 has shipped, Mozilla’s l10n team and its community can focus both on getting new, official translations into the build and release process and on improving the existing process.
One way to think of the release process is like a train leaving a station. We do our best to try to get everyone to catch the next release train. Another release train (Firefox 3.0.1) will be leaving the station soon and we will be trying to get more localization aboard. Volunteers working on localizations come from all over the world. Brazil, France, Germany, India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, the list goes on and on. (If I didn’t mention your country, I meant no offense. You can see all the teams here.) Those contributors are working hard right now to translate our software in their native languages to make sure they are ready for the the next release.
As we grow as a global project (presently with over 180 million users), we continue to meet so many new contributors. You might imagine that at times we are overwhelmed with the level of interest from our developer, testing, localizer, and user communities. What a wonderfully complex challenge that contributors help make work in order to ship in 48 languages.
As the dust settles from shipping Firefox 3, we are eager to increase the number of localizations we ship and improve our process. It’ll take a strategic plan to make gains in our process and here is a piece of the plan I’d like to see take place:
- Globally, we reach out to individual localization teams and set up IRC or even telephone meetings,
- Figure out what is feasible to happen in the next 3-6 months for each translation team,
- Discuss plans for teams close to finishing translation on Firefox 2.0, Firefox 3.0.x, or Firefox 3.1,
- Address other agenda items for each team.
What do you think of this plan? Good idea or bad idea? Did I miss anything? If you have agenda points, let me know. If we set up these team meetings, we can add those points to our list.
Our goal is to get as many localizations that are close to finishing their translation, shipping when/if they can.
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Localizing Firefox 3 and Thunderbird (post 2 in a series of 3)
Ankit Patel is the lead localizer for Firefox and Thunderbird in his native language of Gujarati. Last year, when Chofmann and I went to India, Ankit was instrumental in helping me set up a productive visit for us. In his post, he writes about what it took for him to localize Firefox and Thunderbird.
I asked Ankit to write his story for several reasons. First, he has been a long-time contributor to open source projects and very dedicated to Mozilla. Additionally, I wanted to showcase the story of a localizer who is creating a translation for a community in a high Internet growth region like India.
In the last post, Friedel, who is a tools developer and translator, wrote about his experience. This is a bit of a different story about a localizer in a region of growing importance to Mozilla…
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Student volunteers winning awards
I received a note from one of our student teams in India who volunteered to do market research for us. If you remember, I blogged about Team 21 from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadebad and the research they did about marketing Firefox in India. For their hard work, they “won the best industrial project of the year award for the work [they] had done for Mozilla”. I learned from Vijay’s email that his graduate program gives out an award to the best student team and his team won it. You can review all their work at the Spreadfirefox post they created. Great work, Vijay!
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Another student report from India
Another student team from India has posted their report to Spread Firefox. If you follow that link, you’ll see the team, an executive summary about the project, and a link to download the .PDF. Please take a look and participate in the forum there if you have questions or comments.
From the student team’s executive summary:
“India being a country of more than 1 billion people with significantly growing number of internet users presents itself as a prime target crucial for the success of internet browsers like Mozilla Firefox. This report provides guidelines for developing the marketing strategy for Mozilla Firefox. We conducted extensive market research among college students because they are the most heavy internet user segment. This research was administered through an online questionnaire widely circulated among college students. The proposed strategy stands on three prime pillars – Development of community leaders via viral marketing, content development for targeting the Indian consumer and addressing the cyber cafes – the primary centre for internet browsing by the Indian youth. To address the cyber cafes, a field visit was organized but our efforts suggest that success of this initiative requires active involvement by Mozilla senior management.
“The success of this strategy would need high level of commitment from Mozilla in conducting campus campaigns for developing community leaders, targeted content development for Indian masses addressing their usage requirements and exclusive agreements with large cyber café chains. We believe this marketing strategy would enable Firefox in achieving larger market share and in becoming the first internet browser of choice for the Indian customer.”
community website
