L10n:Localization Process: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 14:50, 22 October 2013

Mozilla's localization (L10n) objective is to improve the world by culturally adapting Mozilla products by region and locale and offering them to every user in every region throughout the world. By doing so, we create a world where the open web exists beyond linguistic, cultural, and geographical boundaries. We also pride ourselves on making sure that each user will love their experience with Mozilla products, regardless of language, culture, and region. A user has an awesome experience with Mozilla by learning about, discovering, installing, using, and continually updating their Mozilla products to their latest released versions.

As an open source project, we work closely with communities of volunteer contributors who also care about the fate of the open web. Their contributions to our L10n effort make having an open and accessible web possible. Without their help, the web and Mozilla would not be what it is today. Working together, we can open the web to all and protect user rights all over the world.

The nature of the Mozilla L10n program is deeply rooted in collaboration between volunteer localizers and a lean team of Mozilla staff called the L10n drivers. The process that makes this collaboration efficient and strong can be described in four stages: an initial desire to localize Firefox, the actual localization work, pushing localized versions toward official release status, and maintaining Firefox while jumping into more projects.

Starting a L10n effort

A L10n community is born.

Localizing a project

How Mozilla and you localize Firefox.

Localized release schedule

Putting your localization into the user's hands.

Post-release

More ways to contribute after your first release.

These four stages make up the L10n program. To learn more about any of these, click on any of the links above. To get the big picture, we suggest you start with the green bubble and move from stage to stage.

Since we actively promote open source values, we always try to improve our efforts and welcome your input. Please tell us what you think by joining the discussion either on the L10n forum or the IRC #l10n channel.

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-{{draft}}
+{{L10navbar}}
+__NOTOC__
-The Mozilla [[L10n:Home_Page|Localization]] (L10n) team wants to help people launch as many new languages/locales as possible. This wiki page is meant to give you an overview of what’s involved in translating our software, with links to more detail.
+Mozilla's localization (L10n) objective is to improve the world by culturally adapting Mozilla products by region and locale and offering them to every user in every region throughout the world. By doing so, we create a world where the open web exists beyond linguistic, cultural, and geographical boundaries. We also pride ourselves on making sure that each user will love their experience with Mozilla products, regardless of language, culture, and region. A user has an awesome experience with Mozilla by learning about, discovering, installing, using, and continually updating their Mozilla products to their latest released versions.
-We are always looking for feedback to make this page better, so if you have something to say good or bad please post to the forum or [mailto:mic@mozilla.com mail us].
+As an open source project, we work closely with communities of volunteer contributors who also care about the fate of the open web. Their contributions to our L10n effort make having an open and accessible web possible. Without their help, the web and Mozilla would not be what it is today. Working together, we can open the web to all and protect user rights all over the world.
-=Step 1: Volunteer=
+The nature of the Mozilla L10n program is deeply rooted in collaboration between volunteer localizers and a lean team of Mozilla staff called the L10n drivers. The process that makes this collaboration efficient and strong can be described in four stages: an initial desire to localize Firefox, the actual localization work, pushing localized versions toward official release status, and maintaining Firefox while jumping into more projects.
-The process begins when someone (you :-) notices our software is not translated into their language, and volunteers to do the work. You need to:
+<div style="border-radius: 50px; width: 25%; background-color: #4AA02C; float: left; display: block; margin: 1.5%; border: 1px solid #C4C295; text-align: center; padding: 2.5%; padding-top: 0px"><h2>[[L10n:Starting a localization|Starting a L10n effort]]</h2>A L10n community is born.</div>
+<div style="border-radius: 50px; width: 25%; background-color: #A2BFF4; float: left; display: block; margin: 1.5%; border: 1px solid #C4C295; text-align: center; padding: 2.5%; padding-top: 0px"><h2>[[L10n:Localizing a project|Localizing a project]]</h2>How Mozilla and you localize Firefox.</div>
+<div style="border-radius: 50px; width: 25%; background-color: orange; float: left; display: block; margin: 1.5%; border: 1px solid #C4C295; text-align: center; padding: 2.5%; padding-top: 0px"><h2>[[L10n:Becoming an Official Localization|Localized release schedule]]</h2>Putting your localization into the user's hands.</div>
+<div style="border-radius: 50px; width: 92%; background-color: #C0C0C0; float: left; display: block; margin: 1.5%; border: 1px solid #C4C295; text-align: center; padding: 2.5%; padding-top: 0px"><h2>[[L10n:Official Localized Releases|Post-release]]</h2>More ways to contribute after your first release.</div>
+<div style="border-radius: 10px; background-color: white; border: 3px solid; display: block; padding:20px; margin-top: 20px;">These four stages make up the L10n program. To learn more about any of these, click on any of the links above. To get the big picture, we suggest you start with the green bubble and move from stage to stage.</div>
-* Join an existing team or start a new one (if there isn't one already working on your language)
-* Register, so people know you are working on it and can contact you
-[[L10n:Localization_Process_Start| More detail...]]
+Since we actively promote open source values, we always try to improve our efforts and welcome your input. Please tell us what you think by joining the discussion either on the [http://www.mozilla.org/community/developer-forums.html#dev-l10n L10n forum] or the [http://irc.mozilla.org/#l10n IRC #l10n channel].
-=Step 2: Make A Language Pack=
+[[Category:L10n]]
-There are two ways that people can get hold of your translation - as an official complete build in that language (see Step 3) or as a language pack which is installed into an existing copy of Firefox (this step). New localizers do language packs first, and may move on to official builds later.
-Language packs have the following features:
-* Release early and often
-* You don't need to pay attention to Mozilla release schedules
-* Language packs act just like add-ons that offer a different language for the user interface
-* Serve updates to your users on your own schedule, as with any other add-ons
-The steps to making a language pack are:
-* Get the English (US) translation from our code management system
-* Make a copy of that, to work on
-* Edit the copy to translate all the strings (perhaps using some tools to help)
-* Bundle up the result into a language pack
-* Ship it to some friends to test it
-* Put the result back in our code management system, and do further rounds of updates as appropriate.
-[[L10n:Localization_Process_Middle|More detail...]]
-=Step 3: Official Release=
-For your localization to be available directly for download on mozilla.com, there needs to be an official complete release rather than just a language pack add-on. Mozilla evaluates newly emerging localizations to possibly be turned into official localized builds. This depends on quality, popularity and other factors.
-Doing an official release involves, among other things:
-* More translation work (e.g. on installer and migration wizard)
-* Doing localized versions of the web pages built into the product, and the start page
-* Translated/localized bookmarks and possibly different search engines
-We will do some technical checks on the completeness and maturity of your localization. We'll be working together to make sure that your localization is hooked up at the right places in our build and release process, and that the hooks within Firefox to external services (such as search and web content handlers) are good for your locale and set up correctly. Your job is to make sure we don't break anything ;-)
-Once all the additional work is done, the Mozilla Corporation will create up-to-date versions of the product for your language on our three major platforms and offers automatic security updates for it.
-[[L10n:Localization_Process_End| More detail...]]
-Once Step 3 is complete, your localization will be offered to people coming to the main Mozilla site as one of the language choices. Now it's time to take a step back and party :-)!
-The Mozilla project gives you room to take Firefox in your region to new heights, to grow your community, get more contributors, and much more. And then there's always the next major release - so you will want your localization to keep track of the progress of the project. We would also like you to tell other people about your experience so that we can grow our Localizer and Developer community so we can do this all over again :-)