A Preliminary Analysis of Localization in Free Software: How Translations Are Performed Laura Arjona Reina, Gregorio Robles, Jesús González-Barahona To cite this version: Laura Arjona Reina, Gregorio Robles, Jesús González-Barahona. A Preliminary Analysis of Localiza- tion in Free Software: How Translations Are Performed. 9th Open Source Software (OSS), Jun 2013, Koper-Capodistria, Slovenia. pp.153-167, 10.1007/978-3-642-38928-3_11. hal-01467568 HAL Id: hal-01467568 https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01467568 Submitted on 14 Feb 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution| 4.0 International License A preliminary analysis of localization in free software: how translations are performed Laura Arjona Reina1, Gregorio Robles2, and Jes´usM. Gonz´alez-Barahona2 1 Technical University of Madrid (UPM), Madrid (Spain) [email protected] 2 GSyC/Libresoft, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid (Spain) {grex,jgb}@gsyc.urjc.es Abstract. Software is more than just source code. There is a myriad of elements that compose a software project, among others documentation, translations, multimedia, artwork, marketing. In this paper, we focus on the translation efforts that free, libre, open source software (FLOSS) projects undergo to provide their software in multiple languages. We have therefore analyzed a large amount of projects for their support and pro- cedures regarding translations, if they exist. Our results show that many, but not all, projects offer some type of support and specify some ways to those wanting to contribute. Usually, projects from a more traditional libre software domain are more prone to ease such tasks. However, there is no general way to contribute, as formats and procedures are often project-specific. We have identified as well a high number of translation- supporting tools, with many projects having their own one. All in all, information about how to contribute is the main factor for having a very internationalized application. Projects accepting and giving credit to contributing translators have high levels of internationalization, even if the process is rudimentary. Keywords: free software; open source; libre software; translations; in- ternationalization; localization; collaborative development; crowdsourc- ing; open innovation; 1 Introduction It is common that free, libre, open source software (FLOSS) projects follow an open development model, accepting contributions from external developers and easing (at least in theory) the entrance of new members. The availability of source code, the use of version control systems, software forges and public mailing lists to manage the project are technical means to put in practice the freedoms that are guaranteed by the license of the software. However, many of these tools, documentation and support are focused on (source code) developers, who have the technical skills to use and understand them. Beyond source code, there is a myriad of elements that compose a software project, such as documentation, translations, multimedia, artwork, marketing, among others. 2 Laura Arjona Reina et al. In this paper we put the focus on translations. We analyze how they are managed in a variety of FLOSS projects, if they have a defined process, and the tools and support that are provided. It should be noted that the use of libre software licenses creates a scenario in which any modification to the software is allowed, along with redistribution of those modified versions. This means for example that end-users or any third party may translate the software to their desired language or dialect, without the need of permission. This legal viability is usually viewed as an advantage of libre software versus proprietary alternatives, both by users and by developers. For users, it is a way to guarantee the avail- ability of the software in their language, despite of the interests of the developer group or company. For developers, it is a way to increase the dissemination of the program, attract new users and new contributors to improve the project, specially in the case that the localization processes happens `inside' the project. In order to ease this, libre software developers have created several means to materialize and take profit of the possibility to internationalize and localize a libre software project, in a similar way to what they do with coding tasks: devel- oping helpful tools, collaborative platforms, giving credit to each contribution and creating a translator community around the project. The main contributions of this paper are following: { It provides a complete perspective of translations in FLOSS. To the knowl- edge of the authors there are few in-depth analyses of the field of translations in libre software. { It looks if FLOSS projects are open to external contributions in the case of translations, and if they ease this task by providing tools, support and guidance. { It studies if FLOSS projects have standard procedures and common tools that allow that the knowledge acquired from translating in one project to be re-used in other projects. The structure of this document is as follows: next, we will introduce some def- initions and concepts related to translation tasks. In Section 3 we introduce the research questions that we address in this paper. The next section contains the related research on localization in libre software projects. Then, we describe the sources of information and methodology used to answer the research questions, and show our results in Section 6. Finally, conclusions are drawn and further research possibilities are discussed. 2 Definitions Software internationalization (often represented by the numeronym i18n) refers to the process to prepare a program to be adapted to different languages, regional or cultural differences without engineering changes [4]. It involves tasks as separating the text strings (those shown to the user in the different inter- faces) to be translated, supporting several character sets, using certain libraries to manage dates, currencies or weights. A preliminary analysis of localization in free software 3 Software localization (often represented by the numeronym l10n) refers to the process of adapting the software to a particular target market (a locale) [4]. It involves tasks as translating the text messages, documentation and published material to the desired language or dialect, adapting graphics, colors and mul- timedia to the local language or culture if needed, using proper forms for dates, currency and measures and other details. Crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by members and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call [15]. The concept of free software was born to retrieve the spirit of collaboration, so it is very common, specially in the last years, to find libre software projects that build a collabora- tive web infrastructure to carry out localization tasks (what sometimes is called crowdtranslation). 3 Research questions In this work, we target following research questions: 3.1 How do FLOSS projects enable localization? With this research question we aim to know if FLOSS projects consider local- ization a separate task of the rest of the source code management. While it is possible to handle localization as any other modification of the source code of a software project, in a well-internationalized software project, the task of trans- lation can be made by conventional users or other people that may not have the programming skills needed for contributing using software development tools. To answer this question we will look at the websites of several libre software projects and specially at the pages related to how to contribute, and see if there are any special guidelines on how to contribute with translations, comparing the process to follow with the one for contributing with source code. In addition, we will inspect if the objects to be localized are enumerated, and look for the existence of specialized internationalization or localization teams, guidelines and support platforms. 3.2 What tools and collaborative platforms are used by FLOSS projects to approach l10n tasks? The goal of this research question is to gather information about the tools that libre software developers have created to manage the localization process. These tools may be pieces of software such as standalone editors specialized in handling localization files, web platforms, scripts to integrate changes in translations into the source code repository, among others. To answer this question, in addition to review the related literature, we will investigate libre software catalogs in order to find localization tools and plat- forms, and will inspect the website of libre software projects to assess if they recommend any particular tool. 4 Laura Arjona Reina et al. 3.3 What are the results and consequences of these approaches to software localization? We plan to count the number of languages to which each software project is translated, and to know if there are significant differences depending of the translation tool or platform used, or other aspects of the localization process. We will review literature in order to find other consequences (economic, social. ) of the efforts in localization made by the libre software communities. 4 Related research Compared with matters related to source code and even documentation, the number of research articles that address the issue of translations in software is very scarce. There are some papers that provide some insight on the presence of free software for translations (not necessarily translating libre software) [16].