Comment 2 for bug 57925

This functionality would be of tremendous help to those translating into a different dialect of the same language, allowing free software to be closer to the people using it. The number of people who would potentially benefit from this are probably in the billions. No major world language is immune from dialecticism, so this affects the likes of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Chinese. Many smaller languages are affected by dialecticism as well. In short, it is a major problem.

To take an example, it would be far more efficient for Brazilian Portuguese translators to base their efforts on the main Portuguese translation (or vice versa). In the current environment, the two groups must independently create their own translations from C (which is usually en_US).

To cite another example, there are a number of independently-managed English translations. the English Translation initiative (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EnglishTranslation) is an attempt to bring them all together to create one high-quality English translation (based primarily on en_GB). Once the support arrives in Rosetta, it will be able to easily form the basis of numerous dialect translations.

As things stand, translations groups are forced to re-invent the wheel many times over. There is no mechanism for them to co-operate and share their work. This is a major impediment and disincentive for translations in free software.

Rosetta has been tremendously successful at lowering the bar for non-technical people to participate in free software translations. I feel that simplifying the process dialecticism is the best means of lowering that bar even further to allow grass-roots participation.