[Typo3-doc] [Translation]

[Matthias Stübner]

On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 14:34:23 +0100, JoH wrote:

>> When "I" sell something than it is "my" task to document something,
>> but not the T3-teams task. BTW: I believe it was in the last CT where
>> there was an article about this, pointing out that it is even not
>> defined what documentation is...
> 
> So when you sell MS-Office to your clients it's your job to write the German
> manual?

In case that it would be open source and you as the seller dont' pay for
it: YES. So a commercial product like the referenced one may not be the
best to compare with, isn't it?

> No - it's the producer's part to do this. If there is no adequate manual the
> seller might choose another product. And this is the problem we have with
> TYPO3. We are losing the financial power and sponsoring abilities of many
> big players just because there is no adequate documentation.

I cannot discuss about that, as I'm not familar with whether and where
money flows towards Kasper. I see T3 as an project that allows people to
take usage free of charge.

> The reality is that many people are writing English docs that have to be
> reviewed and rewritten by others to meet the minimum requirements of a good
> documentation. So when you are talking about resources and manpower you
> should be aware that we are wasting a lot of these just for getting as many
> English documentation as possible. Taking a closer look at the people who
> joined the doc-team you will notice that most of them are no native speakers
> of the English language. In fact we have many French and German people. IMHO
> most of them are able to write adequate docs in their native language but
> there are very few that could produce the same quality in English.

You are right, why not. But I prefer a doc written in very bad english,
even bullet points, than in french, as I coun't read anything from that.

>> Again, to whom does he hand over. If you have that person it is fine,
>> but I doubt that.
> 
> We hand this over to people who are able to understand at least two
> languages. If there is someone who is able to understand German and write
> English this someone can join with me, since I am able to understand English
> and write German. Both of us can produce at least two manuals available in
> German _and_ English in the same time you would need for two English only
> manuals if this job was done the way you described it.

Ack. Nevertheless it seems that we suffer on not having so many Aussie's,
Brit's, or Burger's here, including Kasper. Am I wrong?
 
> As I described above we needed less people if we did it in native languages
> only with the additional advantage that we would have much more translated
> manuals available.
> 
> Maybe we should set up a list where any member/contributor of the doc-team
> can tell us about his/her abilities to understand and/or write different
> languages. This could help the team leader to hand over the right jobs to
> the right people.

Well, thats fine, But you changed, maybe by chance, your wording. Before
you were referencing to native writer, now just writers.

-- 
Mfg Matthias