The apt version we use in Ubuntu has the nice feature to support translated package descriptions. This means that “apt-cache show apt” (or synaptic) will display a german translation if the user has a default german locale. Translating those this is a big task, there are plenty of packages so there are plenty of descriptions.
To make working with the translations of these descriptions in launchpad easier there is a now new website that sorts the package descriptions and presents them in a nice and easy way. It was written by István Nyitrai and is available at http://people.ubuntu.com/~mvo/nightmonkey . I think its very cool, have a look and give feedback to the author.
The debian project uses a system called DDTSS: http://ddtp.debian.net/ddtss/index.cgi/xx that looks a bit different (and does of course not contain ubuntu specific package like the ones in restricted). We are currently working with Debian on a way so that we can push the translations.launchpad.net translations back to Debian. We already sync regularly from Debian, having a working system in both direction is going to rock 
November 19, 2008 at 9:29 pm |
Slightly OT, but do you know if there’s a way to see the names of the translators in Debians DDTP system?
November 19, 2008 at 9:49 pm |
Sorry, I don’t know if that is possible.
November 20, 2008 at 6:23 am |
Why don’t you make the changes in Debian in the first place? Seems that would be easier than inventing sync.
November 20, 2008 at 8:30 am |
Thanks for the suggestions. We do encourage that, however there are some packages where this is not possible because they do not exist in debian. We also don’t want to limit the options, some translators like LP and are used to its workflow.
November 20, 2008 at 10:26 pm |
This looks very good. I am especially interested in the synchronisation (push) back to Debian.
Could you expand a bit more on that? Is there any timeframe regarding when this functionality might be available?
Also announcing this on the ubuntu-translators list might be a good idea.
Thanks!
February 3, 2010 at 12:07 am |
Hi there, interesting blog, just want to ask you what filtering system you use for filtering out junk websites because I am getting so many spammers on my web site.