L10n:Becoming an Official Localization

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Revision as of 14:29, 12 June 2008 by AxelHecht (talk | contribs) (add a hint at mercurial)
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The Starting a Localization described how to start a localization and use language packs to distribute that work to testers and users.

Having an official build will give your users

  • a download link on mozilla.com and http://getfirefox.com, for all three major platforms
  • a localized install experience, including profile migration
  • a localized start page
  • localized Web parts like first-run page, or get-involved
  • automatically generated security updates
  • language-specific major upgrade to the next versions

There are technical measures that help us achieve these goals;

  • Use the Mozilla CVS server. To create builds Mozilla needs access to your source, this happens through our cvs repository. Details...
  • Localize some web content. This isn't all of the Mozilla.com website. We currently only offer the localization of the Web parts. If your interested in translating the Mozilla.com website, we're interested, too, but we haven't figured out the right set of pages yet. Details...
  • Fix bugs in your localization. There will be a bugzilla component for your localization, in which Mozilla and community members can file bugs on your localization. We'll be working together to fix those, land them, test them and ship them with the next (minor) release.
  • Organize further QA. There will be further test requirements, which the localization team and its community are responsible for with help from the Mozilla L10n and QA teams. Details...
  • Follow the development. Localizers need to follow the announcements in .l10n, so that they know when to work on minor and major versions. Details...

Over the next few paragraphs we will better define the process that moves towards official build status.

Preparation

To become an official localization, you will need to have a source for your localization and, if possible, some reviews of your work by native speakers. If you have some of the Building Blocks filled, that's a plus, too. You should have a registration bug filed now, and that bug should list

  • What you want to release. Please mention your language, the language code, and the product/products you're localizing.
  • Who you are. We'll need your name, and the name of your peers. A link to your Teams page would be good, too.

File a registration bug using this bug link, which sets the right component. If multiple teams try to submit a localization, this will be resolved within a single registration bug, so before filing a new registration bug, make sure that there isn't one already. We strongly prefer that everyone cooperates to make a better and stronger team.

From this point forward we will consider your officially responsible for this effort. You should consider this a several year commitment to continue with the effort of your localization. Mozilla is a community project and as such, we understand that your schedule has more on it than just Mozilla. Localizing Mozilla is an ongoing effort nevertheless, and if a localization community runs short on manpower, we need your help in getting new volunteers on board.

You should attach your localization source to this bug for review. Zips usually fail to work due to their file size as a single attachment, but tarballs do. You can create one by using 

tar -jcvf localization.tar.bz2 l10n/en-X-dude,

where you replace en-X-dude with your language code.

Reviews

Mozilla will take a look at the reviews by native speakers that you point to in the bug. In addition to that, we'll do a user-experience and a technical review. The technical review is done to ensure that there is a promising effort to create a full source localization of the product in question by evaluating the technical correctness and localization coverage. The user-experience review will make a call whether a particular language or dialect is better served with a language pack instead of a full product localization. We may prioritize requests to match them with the resources inside the QA and release teams at Mozilla. Part of the user experience review is also some linguistic assessment of the language or dialect in question.

These reviews are done to ensure that the quality of the localization work meets the high standards people have come to expect when they download a Mozilla product from the official Mozilla site. A successful review gives the OK for moving from a language pack to a fully localized product.

Once the reviews have been successful, we'll make your localization team official, create a bugzilla component for it, and we're ready to move the localization work into CVS.

Landing in CVS

Mozilla uses CVS to organize the source code changes, you should dig a little into version control systems, with a focus on CVS and branches to understand this better.

In the not-so-distant future, we'll be migrating to Mercurial, or sort, hg. There's plenty of recommended reading in MDC's Mercurial category.

CVS write access

To get write access to the l10n cvs repository on the Mozilla server, there's a bit of paper work to be done. The localization owner needs to file a bug requesting a CVS account. You need to follow the instructions regarding the CVS contributor form. Write access to the CVS repository requires a voucher, which, for the owner, will be done based on the review by Mozilla. For peers of a localization, the owner can vouch (once she or he is registered).

Once your CVS access is up and working, we'll be working towards release.

Towards Release

The first thing that needs to be done is the initial landing and set up. We're calling this the Incubator.

Incubator Stage

Axel does the initial landing in CVS for you, as it happened to be more error prone than the rest. Your localization will be added to the incubator build, too, which generates build logs and language packs as soon as you check in. The result of this stage is a review of your language pack to ensure its working the way we all expect and then it moves to the branch. You'll be landing your changes on the trunk, which remain to be tested against the latest stable release.

This work will be tracked by a landing bug, filed in your bugzilla component and with the alias land-AB-CD, where AB-CD is your language code.

While we're jointly ironing out the remaining localization issues and possibly technical problems, the remaining parts for a full localization get addressed, in particular, the productization and the web parts.

Productization

We'll jointly work on your language-specific search engines, RSS readers, feeds and content handlers. This way users not only have a browser that works in their language but features localized specifically for their language like Search and RSS readers.

We'll file a separate bug to track this step, in which you propose what local options you'd like to include and we collaboratively review it and once it's approved, you check in the changes.

  • Mic is the one who does the reviews with you over this stage
  • the best way to make these recommendations is to get input from your local community as to what they use or want to use in your local language version. For examples check out bugs: 375198, or 375818
  • also check out the current list of requirements for the upcoming release of Firefox 3 or the Firefox 2 requirements

Building your Web presence

  • This is the stage when you build your in web product pages. These are dedicated pages to your build which describe and promote specifications you've identified that users will appreciate. This page is for users.
  • Pascalc work with you to guide the building of these pages
  • Pascal is working to create an explicit instruction set


Ship Beta

  • This is our QA stage, it is heavily dependent on a community review
  • Effectively we're asking and you're asking to get as much community feedback as you have access to, to review these builds. We want to make sure users will be very happy with the quality of the language translation and the choices we've made to reflect functionality like search, RSS, etc in their language.
  • There are no automatic links to your localization on http://getfirefox.com yet, however it is listed as a Beta on http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html.

We're working on a testing matrix to make it easier to find out how to get from a Beta build to a full official release.

Official Release

You now have an official release of your localized Mozilla product. Official Builds come with more possibilities and tasks, which deserves a separate page.

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