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__
-Mozilla's [[L10n:Home_Page|L10n]] objective is offer as many users as possible a great user experience. That includes offering them the Mozilla applications in their language. The user experience follows the route
+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.
-* Finding Firefox on the web
-* Installing Firefox
-* Using Firefox
-* Updating Firefox
-* Upgrading Firefox to a new major version
-Now, this is obviously not the route the localizer experience follows, which is closer to
+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.
-* Wanting to contribute to Firefox in your language
-* Finding out what it takes -- you're at the right place here
-* Localizing the application
-* Get your localization to testers
-* Localize installation and migration
-* Translate web pages linked from the application
-* Translate Mozilla websites
-The following pages should show how those two experiences get along. You might also be interesting in localizing [http://wiki.mozilla.org/Update:Localizers AMO] or [http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/MDC:Localization_Projects developer documentation].
+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.
-We're always looking for feedback to make this page better, so if you have something to say good or bad please post to the [http://www.mozilla.org/community/developer-forums.html#dev-l10n forum] or [mailto:mic@mozilla.com mail us].
+<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>
-= Volunteer =
-Volunteers wanting to contribute to a Mozilla application in their language should first try to find other community members already working on the localization or willing to help out. You should find them on the [[L10n:Teams]] page, which lists the teams by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_code language code]. If there is not team yet, please create a wiki page in the L10n:Teams category introducing yourself, following the examples set forth in the other pages.
-The most lightweight way to expose your localization work to users and testers is to create an Add-on to hold your localization, a so-called language pack. Language packs can be uploaded to [https://addons.mozilla.org AMO], and get all the benefits that AMO brings from that. You don't have to worry about hosting costs, AMO will serve updates to your language pack to your users when they get public, you can create a nice description for your language pack, in your language, too. We're not changing our language strings on stable releases, so with the Add-on compatibility rules, your language pack will continue to work during minor updates.
+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].
-On the other hand, your users won't get a localized install experience of Firefox, including the profile migration dialogs. The AMO site won't be in your language, either. The in-product webpages will come up in one of the currently official languages on mozilla.com, bookmarks and search engines will be taken from the build that your users installed originally. If your users decide to upgrade to the next major version, your language packs will stop working, and get disabled like other incompatible Add-ons, until you uploaded a compatible version on AMO again.
+[[Category:L10n]]
-There is a detailed description of the [[L10n:Localization_Process_Start]] with links to further documentation and tools.
-If you're working on a dialect or a minority language, the disadvantages of language packs don't weigh in that bad, but for majority languages, in particular languages spoken by people without a second language supported by the Mozilla community so far, getting Firefox out there requires more work.
-= 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 ;-)
-The [[L10n:Localization_Process_Middle]] describes the necessary work and the steps we'll be taking together in more detail.
-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.
-Once the official release is completed, 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. The [[L10n:Localization_Process_End]] talks about this in detail. 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 :-)