LibreOffice on Ubuntu

l10n
#1

Hi,

because of this Ubuntu packaging bug that Bjorn Michaelsen even
recently downgraded from high to low:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-defaults-it/+bug/957589
Localized LibreOffice on Ubuntu makes substandard impression on
non-English users. It requires additional hacking without any notice
to the non-English speaking users.

Is there a way a language team (like Slovenian who has detected
another nasty bug in packaging Slovenian LibreOffice package as
https://bugs.launchpad.net/df-libreoffice/+bug/1024886) a way of
stopping its version to be packaged in such a buggy way for Ubuntu?

It is substandard for the LibreOffice project and it is an insult to
the LibreOffice translation community. Should they rebrand it to
"non-US-helpless-LibreOffice for Ubuntu"? Isn't this a blocker of some
kind?

Thanks,
m.

#2

I don’t think this is the appopriate list to dump you rant into.

#3

I think it is. I translate 100 % the help and on Ubuntu users think
that help is not localized -> translators are lazy. Can you rework
into something substandard and keep its name?
Same goes with your localization, but obviously you do not care.

Lp, m.

#4

Hi Martin,

Hi,

because of this Ubuntu packaging bug that Bjorn Michaelsen even
recently downgraded from high to low:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-defaults-it/+bug/957589
Localized LibreOffice on Ubuntu makes substandard impression on
non-English users. It requires additional hacking without any notice
to the non-English speaking users.

Is there a way a language team (like Slovenian who has detected
another nasty bug in packaging Slovenian LibreOffice package as
https://bugs.launchpad.net/df-libreoffice/+bug/1024886) a way of
stopping its version to be packaged in such a buggy way for Ubuntu?

It is substandard for the LibreOffice project and it is an insult to
the LibreOffice translation community. Should they rebrand it to
"non-US-helpless-LibreOffice for Ubuntu"? Isn't this a blocker of some
kind?

After doing some tests with Jean-Baptiste help on Ubuntu 12.04 FR, I
agree with you that it's not a professional way to show our work.
However I don't think we should make it a blocker.
First, because the work around is not difficult : when you install the
language pack and the help pack in your language explicitly, the en_us
pack is not installed.
And the second reason that appears to my eyes is that LibreOffice on
Ubuntu is very important for our users.
I'm confident also that if Björn makes the priority of the bug lower,
it's not because he doesn't consider our work or that he doesn't care
about it, but surely because more severe bugs have to be fixed before,
like this one for example
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libreoffice/+bug/1085169 and
there is some others that prevent you to use LibO completely.
What we have decided to do is to extend our release notes to inform our
users and send the message to the forums too, we will try to communicate
at best on this bug to help solve this problem quickly.
What do you think about it ?

Kind regards
Sophie

#5

That's a really bold assumption. I'm not stupid when it comes to computers but I've honestly given up trying to get Ubuntu to give me stuff in the language I want. I either have to switch the OS locale and UI to that language, which switches a lot of stuff, not all of which I might want in another language. Ubuntu may be great on lots of things but it *singularly* fails when it comes to giving the user control of the UI language of individual applications.

Added to that, it steers you to the Software Centre for most things and while that's a neat place, it still has the problem that it gives you zero control over the UI language. I tried a couple of time to take off the version of LO the SC suggest to put on a different one, mostly for testing, and after having spent half a fruitless day on each occassion, I threw in the towel and waited for an Ubuntu update to fix whatever I might have broken.

So to be honest "the work around is not difficult" most likely IS a very big problem for most people who just search-and-click and don't have the faintest idea of how to work around. When determining how hard or easy anything is, we should never fall into the trap of asking "is it easy for me"... the question to ask is "would it be easy for my mother" (assuming she's over 50) - if the answer is yes, then it probably IS easy. If no, it isn't.

Michael

17/01/2013 12:14, sgrìobh Sophie Gautier:

#6

Hi Michael,

That's a really bold assumption. I'm not stupid when it comes to
computers but I've honestly given up trying to get Ubuntu to give me
stuff in the language I want. I either have to switch the OS locale and
UI to that language, which switches a lot of stuff, not all of which I
might want in another language. Ubuntu may be great on lots of things
but it *singularly* fails when it comes to giving the user control of
the UI language of individual applications.

Added to that, it steers you to the Software Centre for most things and
while that's a neat place, it still has the problem that it gives you
zero control over the UI language. I tried a couple of time to take off
the version of LO the SC suggest to put on a different one, mostly for
testing, and after having spent half a fruitless day on each occassion,
I threw in the towel and waited for an Ubuntu update to fix whatever I
might have broken.

So to be honest "the work around is not difficult" most likely IS a very
big problem for most people who just search-and-click and don't have the
faintest idea of how to work around. When determining how hard or easy
anything is, we should never fall into the trap of asking "is it easy
for me"... the question to ask is "would it be easy for my mother"
(assuming she's over 50) - if the answer is yes, then it probably IS
easy. If no, it isn't.

Well, I'm only trying to find a solution that could be best for our
Ubuntu users and our l10n team (and by the way, I'm over 50 ;-). I'm not
a Ubuntu user, only a debian one, so I really don't know how it works
hence why I ask somebody else to test it.
So, I'm going to ask some Ubuntu newbies on the FR list and will bring
you the feedback. Believe me, I don't want to reduce the issue or make
it appears less important than it is.
Kind regards
Sophie

#7

Hi Sophie,

17/01/2013 12:59, sgrìobh Sophie Gautier:

Well, I'm only trying to find a solution that could be best for our

I know you work hard to that end but at the same time, we all know how easy it is slipping into assumptions about other people :slight_smile:

Ubuntu users and our l10n team (and by the way, I'm over 50;-). I'm not
a Ubuntu user, only a debian one, so I really don't know how it works
hence why I ask somebody else to test it.

True, but then you work with software and computers a lot and that means you're not really representative of Jo(sephine) Blogs.

Michael

#8

Where else would a LibreOfffice localizer register a complaint about a
LibreOffiec L10n issue (albeit with a downstream distro package of
that L10n)?

I think Martin is doing the entire LO L10n community a service by
being diligent about testing the full life-cycle of LO L10n (including
it's packaging in distros). IMHO, L10n, in general, not just LO, does
no receive enough of this sort of "user experience" testing and I
applaud martin for his work to uncover such issues and bring them to
the attention of other localizers and people who care about L10n.

Where you read a rant, I read an impassioned plea from someone who not
only works diligently at serving the best interests of LibreOffice and
his language community by performing the work of L10n, but goes the
extra mile (or kilometer, if you prefer) in testing all the way to the
end user's experience. I can understand the frustrated tone of his
message and I hope that his concerns are taken seriously.

cjl

#9

Hi all,

Hi Sophie,

17/01/2013 12:59, sgrìobh Sophie Gautier:

Well, I'm only trying to find a solution that could be best for our

I know you work hard to that end but at the same time, we all know how
easy it is slipping into assumptions about other people :slight_smile:

Ubuntu users and our l10n team (and by the way, I'm over 50;-). I'm not
a Ubuntu user, only a debian one, so I really don't know how it works
hence why I ask somebody else to test it.

True, but then you work with software and computers a lot and that means
you're not really representative of Jo(sephine) Blogs.

So I ask to one of our member who is helping a lot on Ubuntu user side,
his answer is :
- it will not be easy at all for (Jo)sephine to use the work around, it
can't be done via the software center (I don't know how it's called
exactly in English) but only via synaptic or using the command line
(what is advised currently on the FR Ubuntu forum),

- it doesn't affect LibreOffice only, Firefox and Thunderbird are
suffering from the same bugs, so it's seems more on the Canonical side
(but Debian is also touched) than on the LibreOffice side.

From here, I'm not sure what to decide exactly. I find that blocking a
software as important as LibreOffice on a distro is something that has
large consequences for our users, and more if it's not a LibreOffice bug
only, but I feel the same frustration as Martin.

Kind regards
Sophie

#10

How about what I (and some other folk) have suggested all along, some internal function within LO that allows the end user to change the UI/Help language by retrieving the required langpacks? It would solve all these issues of some external bug/feature overring consumer choice. It would also solve the insane install process issue for new users.

Michael

17/01/2013 15:35, sgrìobh Sophie Gautier:

#11

In a way, user-wise most of such infrastructure is already there - we
have the extensions and extension manager. The extension manager
should maybe be more user-friendly in the part of offering language
packs, templates etc., but that is not necessary in the first phase.

Probably it would be possible to extend the extension system to
ui+help content packages (or at least the content part of those, while
the help mechanism, if it is OS-specific would be joined with the
English basic install set and deactivated until the first help content
extension is installed).

But I do not know if that is feasible, how much work is needed etc.

Lp, m.

#12

Hi,

not sure what all the fuss is about, and i'm not even using Ubuntu, but
if the problem is that under Ubuntu, language-pack-xx does not
automatically install libreoffice-help-xx-yy, then here's how I think
the problem could be solved without investing too much sweat into it:

a) submit a patch for ubuntu-desktop, removing its dependency on
libreoffice-help-en-us
b) submit patches to language-pack-* packages, adding necessary
dependencies.

I suspect that such patches should be quite trivial, and take much less
time than adding functionality to LibreOffice which would be meant just
to overcome these distro-specific bugs.

Personally, I think that not installing any libreoffice-help-* package
by default would be an acceptable option (provided that wikihelp works
in Ubuntu, of course). For that to happen, it seems option a) would be
sufficient.

Rimas

#13

Hi :slight_smile:
Sorry.  It's not a problem.

Ubuntu translators have found a tool that has sped up their translation work quite significantly and made it easier.  I was wondering if people here might find it helps with LibreOffice translations.  I don't know though.  Maybe you are already using it or something similar or better. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#14

Hi Tom, and thanks for a heads-up!

2013.01.17 19:45, Tom Davies wrote:

Ubuntu translators have found a tool that has sped up their translation work quite significantly and made it easier. I was wondering if people here might find it helps with LibreOffice translations. I don't know though. Maybe you are already using it or something similar or better.

I'd say we are using "something similar", it's called Pootle. You can
visit https://translations.documentfoundation.org/ and see it yourself!
:slight_smile: Note that we are not enforcing this tool on our teams, and as far as
I know, some teams use different processes/tools to localize LibO.

Regards,
Rimas

#15

Hi :slight_smile:
Ahh cool!!  That looks nice.  I think it's likely to attract people more when there is an element of game-playing visualisations involved.  It's easy to see which languages are winning!

I have sent links to 2 of my colleagues to see if they are inspired to try to win for their language.  One speaks Polish and the other Japanese.  Both are a bit desperately busy but you never know. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#16

Hi, Tom,

we are discussing how to solve this bug that makes localized
LibreOffice perform substandard compared to all other OS:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-defaults-it/+bug/957589

Thanks,
m.

#17

Maybe in the short term but in the long term, a LO internal solution will be needed ANYWAY. Why? Because if LO is really going to make the leap to tablets/mobile devices, it will either mean enabling such a feature or it will mean consciously leaving behind any locale which is not available as an interface language of the OS in question, for example Android, which use force-locale. Which is quite a lot of languages due to the *cough* supportive nature of Android.

Michael

17/01/2013 17:23, sgrìobh Rimas Kudelis:

#18

Hi,

Maybe in the short term but in the long term, a LO internal solution
will be needed ANYWAY. Why? Because if LO is really going to make the
leap to tablets/mobile devices, it will either mean enabling such a
feature or it will mean consciously leaving behind any locale which is
not available as an interface language of the OS in question, for
example Android, which use force-locale. Which is quite a lot of
languages due to the *cough* supportive nature of Android.

Michael

The problem is not a LibreOffice issue but an Ubuntu issue in the way
Ubuntu packages its own LO version and, perhaps, manages the
localization of others softwares provided by the distribution.

Indeed the vanilla version of LibreOffice is not affected by this
defect. I just tried to install the en_us help package for my
LibreOffice 3.6.4 FR version on my Ubuntu 12.04 (x86-64 FR). Now I can
switch between UI+Help in French and UI+Help in English. If I choose the
French UI then the Help is in French, and if I choose the English UI
then the Help is in English.

In my own build of LibreOffice 4.0.0.1+ too, I do not reproduce this
problem, I have UI+Help in French and in English (en_us) as expected.

So, if the problem is on the Ubuntu side, the solution is on Ubuntu side
too.

Best regards.
JBF

#19

I understand that. But that approach ties LO into a process whereby it's at the whim of the ability or willingness of someone else to change/fix *their* system. In the case of Ubuntu, that's doable of course. But if such an issues arises in Windows, OSX, Android or some other proprietary system, then what?

When LO finally makes it on to Android, how *will* we enable Gaelic or Nepali, could someone share that with me?

Michael

17/01/2013 21:37, sgrìobh Jean-Baptiste Faure:

#20

Hi Michael,

I think you missed Jean-Baptiste's point. If I'm reading correctly, his
point was that Ubuntu has effectively broken the functionality that we
already have in place (ability to change the UI/help language).

Rimas

2013.01.18 00:18, Michael Bauer write: