dies geht an alle (pq ... ) die bei uns in heroischer kleinarbeit die perldoc uebersetzen und denen vielleicht auf diesem wege geholfen werden kann. folgende mail ist kopie aus der perl6-langue list.

Hi everybody,

since this is my first post on this list it's probably a good thing to
introduce myself first.

My name is Joergen Lang. I currently live in Hamburg, Germany. Since
1996 I am programming with Perl. After some contributions to the
german-speaking Perl newsgroups, in 1999 I started working as a
freelance translator for O'Reilly Germany. Since then I have
(co-)translated about 14 books, including the last three Llamas, Perl in
a Nutshell, the Alpaca, mod_perl Pocket Reference, Perl Hacks and a good
few more.

#=======================================================================
# HISTORY
#=======================================================================

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend this year's Euro Foo/OSCON
in Brussels. There I had the chance to discuss the idea of translating
the perl documentation into german and the prequisites for this. During
this it became clear that there already are numerous efforts underway to
do this and that it would be of great help to first "build the workshop
and then start the work".

Most of the existing projects appear to be working away by their own
means and with hardly any connection to the other projects. The official
documentation website on http://www.perl.org/docs.html reflects this
problem: Only two languages are "officially" recognized (Japanese, Italian).

After some research I found about 10(!) projects dedicated to the
translation of the documentation (I can post more details if this is
wanted). Some of these use sourceforge as a platform, others do their
work quietly and then release a bunch of POD2::o modules, some use a
wiki-based approach, etc... and - unfortunately - some of these projects
appear to be dead. Or are they?

A thread that was started on this list by Petras Kudaras in 2003
(http://www.mail-archive.com/perl-documentation@perl.org/msg00504.html)
shed some light on what would be needed: A common platform/repository on
which translators could collaborate, communicate and contribute.

I would like to breathe new live into this idea and try to tie together
some of the loose ends that are already there. But I need help!

#=======================================================================
# SYNOPSIS/MISSION STATEMENT
#=======================================================================

- to provide a common platform/repository for the creation and
integreation of localized versions (translations) of the Perl
documentation, starting with the "core" documents (perl*.pod).
- to make these documents (including the english version) as accessible,
extensible, and comprehensive as possible.
- to make these documents part of the regular Perl distribution.
- to provide an easy-to-use interface to the multilingual versions of
the documentation.

#=======================================================================
# INVITATION
#=======================================================================

For a start I would like to invite everybody who is interested, to
discuss how such a platform could be realized, which features are
needed, and how this project could be led to successful completion.

To kick-start the process I have compiled a few thoughts that might
serve as a starting point for the discussion. These are by no means
complete so please forgive me if I missed out on important bits and pieces.

I have deliberately left out some of the more specific ideas on how this
could be implemented or which features might be nice, so this list does
not get too long (which it is, anyway). Details can and hopefully will
be added and discussed later.

(Alterations and additions are more than welcome!)

#=======================================================================
# DETAILS/UNORDERED LIST OF IDEAS
#=======================================================================

Possible benefits of a central repository/platform:

for translators:

- contribution would be much easier
- communication, networking and mutual help would be easier
- by using a common vocabulary (perlglossary.pod?), guidelines and set
of standards the quality of the translations improves
- higher motivation by being part of a community

for end-users:

- improvement of accessibility to existing docs
- increase in overall usability of Perl
- ease in learning the language
- promotion of Perl
- growth of Perl community
- growth of Perl's reputation

Features/Goals/Wishlist

- introduction
[so people coming for the first time know what to expect]
- status monitor
[so people can easily see what is already available and what still
needs to be done]
- translation progress
- changes in source docs
- translation guidelines/howto
- common glossary
- based on perlglossary.pod
- easy-to-use interfaces
- for both contributors and end-users
- web-based
- perldoc-based
- integration of existing translations
- interfaces to existing formats (sourceforge, etc.)
- up-to-date english source (http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/devel.tar.gz)
- search
- helpful tools
- a common format to work on (POD?, .po?, XML?,...)
- versioning system (or interface to existing CVSs?)
- integration of multilingual documentation in perl distribution

Possible contributors

- existing projects/individuals (pod2it, pod2fr, pod2es,...)
- Perl Mongers groups (about 150 non-english-speaking groups exist)
- publishing companies (editors, reviewers,...)
- other members of the Perl community

Possible problems
[there will probably be lots more by the time this gets going...]

- multiple formats and structure of existing translations
- amount of documents (2,000+ pages of plaintext, not including core
modules)
- changes in documentation must be submitted as
patches to the perl source for inclusion
- translations are very hard to keep in sync with source

Needs

- some sort of bootstrapping
- coordination
- funding
- promotion
- support
- release dates
- hierarchy of importance
- for the implementation of a core platform
- for the implementation of features
- for the translation of the docs themselves, e.g.
- most "important" core docs like perl.pod, perlintro.pod,...
- not so important core docs
- perl core modules docs
- up-to-date-ness
- consistency
- scalability, so it can also be used for
- Perl 6
- other natural languages
- other programming languages (?)

Sorry for this rather lengthy post. I hope this is the right place for it.

Anxiously awaiting your comments, ideas, rants, feedback, ...

Joergen