looking east

Language issue as discussed at the Ubuntu Open Week (see full discussion log here):

[19:44] <iulian> <ligemeget> QUESTION: How do we deal
with bug reports containing error messages in another
language than English?
[19:45] <pedro_> well that depends, if somebody filed a
bug in spanish and you talk spanish, translate the report
[19:45] <pedro_> otherwise if you have time you can ask
for more info or reject the bug waiting for a
new one in English
[19:45] <pedro_> more info meaning "Please translate
this in English"
[19:45] <pedro_> s/in/into
[19:46] <pedro_> sadly we have to deal with hundreds
of reports daily and we don't have enough resources to
translate all of them

How do non-English speakers deal with that? Are there readily available translators in the different countries? Or are bugs first reported through the channels of the local community and then only added to the global bug database?

Update: There is a similar discussion about blog posts appearing on Planet GNOME in languages other than English currently going on. For details, see the comments to this Spanish post, and the follow-ups here, and here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 at 6:48 am and is filed under asia, thoughts, open source, ubuntu.