[Typo3-doc] [Translation]

[Jean-Marie Schweizer]

It's important to distinguish between writing and translating.

First about writing:

I agree with JoH that in an ideal world only natives should write in 
their language, if they can do so quite nicely. Exceptions are the ones 
JoH mentioned (professionals, bilingual etc.)

But we also have to consider that we are not writing a novel or a 
philosophical essay. The language skill level needed for documentation 
is not that for a novel etc. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't always 
strive for the best.

Therefore, even if somebody is not native to english he might be skilled 
enough to write a good documentation if proofread by a native 
(proofreading should be done in any case anyway).

About translating:

A whole different story is the translation process. I think it's safe to 
assume to most of us agree that we don't have an ideal documentation 
situation. Some of the documentations are old, some are not written in 
good english etc.

Translation shouldn't be started before a document is finalized in it's 
origin language and since we are still at the point where we try to 
restructure the docMatrix it's just to early to start translating 
because we don't know yet if a document will be finalized the way it is now.

That's all my original consideration was about. Bascially:

1. Restructure the docMatrix
2. Check all the documentations and finalize them if possible
3. Rewrite the documentation to the level of finalization
etc.

With that, we have so much to do without even thinking about translating 
anything.

**********************

Maybe we could conclude the following:

1. If somebody wants to WRITE a documentation in his native language -> 
GO AHEAD

2. If somebody wants to translate -> WAIT
3. If somebody wants to help -> Help with the above 2 and 3

Problem of law in Germany:

It really baffles me that Germany would pass a law like that. And I 
thought Switzerland is crazy about questionable laws. I'm still inclined 
to doubt that in case of TYPO3 that that specific law would be put into 
practice, but I have to take JoH's word for it.

What sense does it make to be forced to translate documents that most 
people would perfectly understand (as stated before) in english?

I don't have an answer to that one.

Jean-Marie