Community-driven Translation of Software and E-Content

Education Without Borders 2007

Asgeir Frimannsson <asgeirf@gmail.com>

My Background

• Internationalised from Birth• Passionate about Open Source Software• 2 years of localisation-related research at QUT– Red Hat Honours Scholarship in Software

Internationalisation 2004-2005

• 2nd Year of a PhD looking at Translation Reuse in Community-driven Localisation

The role of Language

• A strong binding factor for a culture and people• Example: The European Union– 23 official languages– EUR 1.1 billion annually in translation & interpreting

services (2005)– 1% of annual budget(!)

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart”

- Nelson Mandela -

[Source: http://europa.eu/languages/en/document/59]

The role of Language

• Children Learn faster when taught in their mother tongue (Mehrotra, 1998, quoted in Brock-Utne, 2001)

• Technology is a key factor to the survival of a language (Crystal, 2000:143)

• “Digitally Endangered Languages” (Bailey, 2006)

– Languages with little or no presence in technology

Localisation & Translation

• Localisation: The process of modifying a product to a specific language, culture and region– Cultural Adjustments (e.g. colours, images,

etiquette)– Political Adjustments– Legal Adjustments

• The major component is Translation of textual content

Open Source Software

• Software that is free to modify and redistribute

• Developed by a global community of contributors– Strong Commercial Support

• Greatest Hits:– Mozilla Firefox– OpenOffice.org– Linux Distributions

Open Source Software

• Great for developing nations!– Can be used on cheaper, old hardware– No licensing costs– Very Customizable

[Source: http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/medusa/]

Community-driven Translation

“The process through which a community may contribute their language and cultural knowledge to enable localisation of a product to their region and language”

• Originated in the translation of open source software

• Now practiced by some large vendors– Microsoft, Google

Community-driven Translation

The Community• Native Language Speakers• A representative in a local community that sees a

need.– Often not the typical User of the Product

• Participants– Governments– Universities– Non-Government Organisations– Resourceful Individuals– Localisation Service Providers(!)

The Evolution

• Translation initially performed by developers– Tightly integrated with the development process– Limited tool support

• Open Source Software has since enjoyed tremendous success– Translation driven by end-users and vendors– Work being done to make the translation process

more user friendly– Translator-friendly tools

Example: Rosetta and Pootle

• Web-based translation systems– Allows contributors to translate open source

applications using their web browser

http://translations.launchpad.net/ http://www.wordforge.org

Current Limitations

• Translation is a ridiculously technical task– Steep Learning Curve– Better tool support needed

• Operating System Support for New Languages– Fonts, Input Methods, Keyboard Layouts– Date and Number formats

• A few people do a lot of the work– Burnouts

Community-driven Translation

• The Internet is enabling creativity, communication and sharing like never before– YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, Blogs, Wikis– Easy to Learn, Easy to Use, Easy to Share– According to Time Magazine, [You] are the person

of the year• Can we channel this innovation to the benefit

of community-driven translation?– Software, Educational Material, Web content

[2.0]

Thank You

• A/Prof James M. Hogan, QUT• Red Hat Internationalisation Team