Localisation is hard. It's made harder because there is a high technical
skill requirement to implement and integrate a localisation. A good translator,
who is technically skilled enough to localise software, is also difficult to find.
Now consider all this in relation to minority languages: no skilled resources and
few volunteer translators. Is this a recipe for mediocre localisations or an opportunity
for software to help elevate quality and help us produce localisations for very small languages?
There are over 200 languages in Africa with more than 1 million speakers. If
we want to see those in OpenOffice.org we need to dramatically improve the process
of localisation so that we can reduce the barriers to entry.
The WordForge project is delivering localisation infrastructure that helps
localisation teams effectively manage their localisations by ensuring good process
and by imporoving quality through glossary management and translation reuse.
WordForge is focused on using the localisation formats developed by the localisation
industry including XLIFF, TMX and TBX. These standardised localisation formats add
large amounts of value to FOSS projects and translation teams, through the embeding and
managment of the localisation process, terminology and translation memory. WordForge's
existing translation management system, Pootle, is being extending to manage XLIFF files.
The present PO format does not allow effectively allow for this information to be
delivered to localisers.
WordForge builds on the existing Translate Toolkit used by most OpenOffice.org
localisers and enhances the existing Pootle Translation Management Software. These
are real tools being expanded and enhanced by real localisers so that we can deliver
OpenOffice.org in many more languages.