We are pleased to announce that Karmic is now open for translation.

You can now go to

https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/+translations

to start translating Ubuntu Karmic into your language.

This will be the first Ubuntu release to feature message sharing functionality, which will initially allow Jaunty and Karmic translations to be shared on a template and message basis. This will mean that you no longer need to translate the same strings in Jaunty and Karmic. Translate it in one, and your translation will automatically -read instantly- appear in the other.

This feature will progressively be enabled for all Ubuntu releases. Stay tuned for the announcement and more information from the Launchpad Translations team.

During the development cycle language pack updates will be released regularly twice per week (except for soft freezes for alpha or beta milestones). The generation of the first language pack has already started and it will be released in a few days - until then, the PPA language pack updates for Jaunty will be put on hold in order not to interfere with this process.

You are encouraged to test those translations in Karmic and report any problems you might find, either in the ubuntu-translators list or against the ubuntu-translations project in Launchpad.

Happy translating!

[Discuss Karmic Translations on the Forums]

Originally sent to the ubuntu-translators mailing list by David Planella on Wed Jul 15 17:09:47 BST 2009

If you’re an Ubuntu translator, you can get to work on Ubuntu Gutsy straight away!

Simply visit https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu/gutsy/+translations

Thanks to some great work from the Launchpad Translations team, Ubuntu translations will now open much earlier in the development cycle.

Previously, Launchpad had to go offline to import the translation strings for a new Ubuntu release. Launchpad developer Jeroen Vermeulen explained why:

“Setting up translations for a new Ubuntu release involves the movement of massive amounts of data, often with complex interrelationships. You don’t just pick it up and put it somewhere else; people continue to add, review, and edit translations while we try to make a faithful copy of the previous release’s current translation state. It’s a bit like keeping a business running normally while one of its largest departments is moving to a new office, or painting a picture of a group of people who continue to move around normally.”

Thanks to some great work from the Launchpad Translations team, they can now import a new Ubuntu release’s translation strings without taking Launchpad offline. This means that translations for future Ubuntu releases will open as soon as the Ubuntu developer team is ready.

Daily language pack updates

Throughout Gutsy’s development, the Ubuntu team plan to release daily language pack updates through the official repositories. Gutsy users will receive these daily updates as standard.

Daily updates will be a great way for Ubuntu translators to see their work in place almost straight away. Once Gutsy is released as Ubuntu 7.10, its official language pack updates will be sent once a month.