[kde-doc-english] Why does kde-i18n-doc translate outdated documentation?

[Chusslove Illich]

> [: Albert Astals Cid :]
> Having a doc that can't be easily translated is like not having a doc. So
> translation should not be an afterthough in the doc "solution" but a
> integral part of it.

"Integral" is one way, but I'd prefer "modular" instead :)

I propose that those who intend to do some "new style" documentation
(whatever it may be), do so mostly without considering translation, but
focusing on how to make that documentation useful and maintainable (and
*maintained* :)

As for translations, they should only provide the following:

1. The whole tree of what is to be translated should be made downloadable
_from some location through a file-dedicated protocol, picked from a list of
supported protocols (at least available will be: ftp://, svn://, git://).

2. The whole translated copies of this tree should be uploadable somewhere
as by-language directories, using same or different file-dedicated protocol/
location.

3. Those translated trees should be automatically convertible into form for
end-user consumption.

Important note. These steps *must* be done by the documentation maintainer,
or someone from that same project on maintainer's behalf. They *will not* be
done by anyone from KDE TP. (Of course, as time goes by, canned solutions
may be collected for easy deployment on some typical sources/setups.)

An example. If a piece of documentation is maintained through Mediawiki,
then its maintainer should make articles available through e.g. FTP,
mirroring the wiki tree:

  ftp://somewhere/froobaz/doc/
      About/
          Who_Should_Use_Froobaz.mediawiki
          froobaz_main_window_screenshot.png
          ...
      Tutorials/
          Your_First_Froobazity.mediawiki
          ...
      ...

This tree is of course periodically refreshed, as articles get updated.
Then, there should be a location where translated versions of the tree can
magically appear at, by language:

  ftp://somewhere/froobaz/doc-l10n/
      af/
          About/
              Who_Should_Use_Froobaz.mediawiki
              froobaz_main_window_screenshot.png
              ...
          Tutorials/
              Your_First_Froobazity.mediawiki
              ...
          ...
      ar/
          ...
      as/
          ...
      ...

The documentation maintainer needs only to allow write access by a single
entity (we'll think about authentication) to this location, no other
maintenance needed. Finally, the maintainer needs to establish an automatic
way of putting these translated trees up as wiki pages (they should be
locked for normal editing).

So much about documentation maintainer's side, the other question is who
will make it work behind the scene on translations' side. Since I'm being so
awfully specific, clearly I volunteer to do it. I only don't know when :)
But this is precisely where we can delay and experiment, as having some
*new* untranslated documentation for some months is not the end of the
world.

-- 
Chusslove Illich (Часлав Илић)
Serbian KDE translation team
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