Please remove GNOME lang mk (Macedonian) packages from future Ubuntu releases

[Arangel Angov]

Hi,

This might be an unusual request but I think that it's a bug in Ubuntu that needs to be fixed.

Nautilus is crashing on Ubuntu 9.10 while trying to perform drag & drop. This only happens when I'm using the localized version of GNOME in Macedonian so it's probably a bad translation from GNOME upstream or something went wrong during the import process to Rosetta. Anyhow, the Macedonian Localization Team (for GNOME/Ubuntu) is not active for a while now due to different circumstances and there is no one willing to even report this bug and it's been around since Ubuntu 8.10.

This bug is causing a real bad first impression on Macedonian users that are trying Ubuntu for the first time. They see that their language is supported and naturally they select it - after the installation they get a semi-translated desktop environment and they can't even do a simple operation such as drag & drop with their new OS. Since there is no one that's interested in taking over the localization work I don't see any other alternative than removing the GNOME mk language packages from future Ubuntu releases to avoid such inconveniences in the future.

The current Translation Lead for mk is Jovan Naumovski. Feel free to contact him and he can confirm what I've written.

Thanks.

[Aron Xu (happyaron)]

We should have further investigation on this issue, it could affect many users. If there are bugs of GNOME, can we solve them by working with developers to adapt the code and translations? Deactive a language may be the shot in the locker.

[David Planella (dpm)]

Hi Арангел,

Thanks for your bug report and for bringing this to our attention.

I think removing the translations from Launchpad might be a too drastical approach. Not only would it require some work, but we would we discarding a considerable effort from previous translators to provide a localised desktop.

As it stands now, Macedonian users not wanting to use the desktop in their language can simply go to System > Administration > Language support and choose English or another language.

In my opinion it would be much easier to track the bug and fix it. If it is indeed a problem with translations, it will even be easier to solve, since the strings could be corrected in Launchpad and fixed with a language pack release.

So, may I ask you to provide us with the detailed steps to reproduce the bug, so we can track it down?

Thanks.

[Jovan Kostovski (chombium)]

Hi David,

I'm sharing your opinion on removing the Macedonian translation from Ubuntu.

There was one similar bug in the past, Nautilus was crashing when coping (Ctrl+C Ctrl+V) a single file.
This bug was fixed. If we find the bug number we can refer to it and see how it was fixed.

Here are the steps to reproduce this bug:
1. When logging in, select Macedonian as language (locale)
2. Open Nautilus
3. Select ONLY one file or folder and try to copy it by using drug & drop
4. When you release the mouse button, Nautilus crashes and the icons on desktop are not shown

I tested using this procedure and I could reproduce this bug.
If you select 2 or more files/folders the coping works good.

BR, Jovan

[Arangel Angov (arangel)]

Hi guys,

I agree that the more reasonable solution is to just fix this one and go on. But what happens with the next bug? Who will fix it? I've been maintaining the translation for Nautilus since 2004 or so and I really don't have the time or will to do it anymore. It makes me sad to see all that effort go to waste but there is just no one that is willing to accept responsibility for the maintenance of the Macedonian translation. I'd like to ask the current maintainer to comment on this thread so that you guys can get the real picture. The reality is that the percentage of the translated strings in both GNOME and Ubuntu is just going to go down since there hasn't been a commit in both of the projects for maybe a year now.

If Jovan Kostovski wants to do it from now on that would be great news, but If there is no one to take care of issues like this it's logical to have no translation and a usable OS than having an unfinished and buggy translation with a broken OS.

Just trying to clarify my request as much as I can.

[Arangel Angov (arangel)]

I'm sorry but this is probably a mistake. This bug doesn't have a duplicate - When trying to open https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/476498 it says that I do not have permission to access the page.

[Aron Xu (happyaron)]

Why 476498 is a private bug?

[Јован Наумовски (jovenaumovski)]

Hi everyone,

I also confirm the problems from the bug description. These problems exist since Hardy, and while i fixed the nasty Nautilus bug in gnome upstream back then, it appears that it isn't fixed yet in Rosetta. Then in the following versions, new similar bugs started to appear, and there was no one to report them so they remain unfixed. Also, I've personally heard some negative Ubuntu experiences from people which were probably consequence from these bugs.

My point is, there are people who will try the Macedonian translation and experience these problems, and on the other hand there's no one who will report and fix these bugs. If we remove the mk translation, at least we can make the Ubuntu experience better for those who want to try it, and don't care/don't know how to report bugs.

Jovan.

[Damjan Georgievski (gdamjan)]

we talked about this issue with arangel and others

@David Planella

> I think removing the translations from Launchpad might be a too drastical approach.
> Not only would it require some work, but we would we discarding a considerable effort
> from previous translators to provide a localised desktop.

we would just like to see it removed from the "install boot menu". As arangel said, people are excited to see it and often choose it

> As it stands now, Macedonian users not wanting to use the desktop in their
> language can simply go to System > Administration > Language support and
> choose English or another language.

The problem is, they have the bug when nautilus is crashing when doing drag & drop. The users have no way of knowing that it's a problem with the locale, and they would just infer it's a bug in Ubuntu generally.

> In my opinion it would be much easier to track the bug and fix it. If it is indeed a problem with translations

we tried that, we didn't succeed in resolving the issue

[David Planella (dpm)]

I tried to reproduce and track the bug following:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs and from that page also
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Apport

I could reproduce the crasher and apport filed a bug for me, but it seems that by default it marks the bug as private for some reason. I've now marked it as public, so everyone should be able to see it.

Basically, to summarise the comments on the other bug, I could track it down to these strings:

https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/+source/nautilus/+pots/nautilus/mk/418/+translate
https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/+source/nautilus/+pots/nautilus/mk/419/+translate

Which is a translation mistake coming from the upstream file (notice the additional % at the end of %B%):

http://l10n.gnome.org/POT/nautilus.master/nautilus.master.mk.po

#: ../libnautilus-private/nautilus-file-operations.c:2863
msgid "Moving %'d file (in \"%B\") to \"%B\""
msgid_plural "Moving %'d files (in \"%B\") to \"%B\""
msgstr[0] "Преместувам %'d датотека (во %B) во %B"
msgstr[1] "Преместувам %'d датотека (во %B) во %B%"
msgstr[2] "Преместувам %'d датотека (во %B) во %B%"

#: ../libnautilus-private/nautilus-file-operations.c:2867
msgid "Copying %'d file (in \"%B\") to \"%B\""
msgid_plural "Copying %'d files (in \"%B\") to \"%B\""
msgstr[0] "Копирам %'d датотека (во %B) во %B"
msgstr[1] "Копирам %'d датотека (во %B) во %B%B\""
msgstr[2] "Копирам %'d датотека (во %B) во %B%B\""

These should be fixed upstream eventually, but you can fix them straight away in Launchpad and they will be released in the next language pack:

https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/+source/nautilus/+pots/nautilus/mk/418/+translate
https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/+source/nautilus/+pots/nautilus/mk/419/+translate

> I also confirm the problems from the bug description. These problems exist since Hardy, and while i fixed the nasty Nautilus bug in gnome upstream back then, it appears that it isn't fixed yet in Rosetta.

Rosetta did not make any changes to this string, it only imported the upstream translation as it is.

[David Planella (dpm)]

Арангел, Јован and gdamjan,

Thanks for the discussion and the explanation of the current situation with the Macedonian translation team.

There's two aspects to this bug, and I'd like to keep them as separate in order to better address them:

* Crasher: this is something the Macedonian translation team can fix straight away. I'd like to ask you to correct those directly in Launchpad and use bug 476498 for further comments:

https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/+source/nautilus/+pots/nautilus/mk/418/+translate
https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/+source/nautilus/+pots/nautilus/mk/419/+translate

* Macedonian translations maintenance: I would like to ask you to file a support request with your decision for us to consider and help you move forward (would you like the translations to be removed from the list of available languages in the Ubuntu installer? Or that language packs are no longer available in Macedonian?, etc.). The answer tracking system is a best option to follow these issues than a bug report. Therefore, do you think you could file a request using:

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu-translations/+addquestion

Thanks!

[Damjan Georgievski (gdamjan)]

> * Macedonian translations maintenance: I would like to ask
> you to file a support request with your decision for us to
> consider and help you move forward (would you like the
> translations to be removed from the list of available languages
> in the Ubuntu installer? Or that language packs are no longer
> available in Macedonian?

at this time, it's probably best to remove the option from the installer..

people wanting to test and perhaps improve the macedonian localization in the future should have the option to install the packages and play with them