freebsd documentation help

[Julian H. Stacey]

Warren Block wrote:
> On Fri, 4 Sep 2015, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
> 
> > Lukas Splavec wrote:
> >> Thanks a lot! I would really appreciate any help possible. At the moment I
> >> am trying to make translation software to work and then we can go through
> >> it together.
> >
> > A list of free on line translator engines in case it helps anyone:
> > 	http://www.berklix.org/trans/
> > Maybe someone might write a shell to call one of the engines on existing
> > freebsd.org web pages, then freeze them, & rerun every so often.
> 
> It's technically possible.  Licenses and copyright would have to be 
> considered.

Yes good point.  If a translator server provider happens to assert a copyright.
Google doesnt seem to, looking at:
IN  http://www.berklix.org/trans/
OUT http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=de&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.berklix.com%2F~jhs/trans%2F
I've not checked others for that yet.

If some do assert copyright, there's a way round:
  Automatically create skeletal trees of URLs, & let the translator
  server translate afresh each time someone wants a page (& set a
  No Robots directive at top of those http trees).  
  URLs of translator servers are conveniently predictable, generatable.  
  If a translator server operator found it a load & complained,
  they could give us permission us to store their translation of our data,
  to save them CPU. Then only auto re-translate when our master pages changed.


> > It could bulk auto translate a mass of languages for FreeBSD really fast.
> > it'd be clunky, & freebsd.org doc project till now uses non HTML
> > master format
> 
> DocBook XML, yes.

Ah yes, thanks.

> > & doc tools (that never build for me),
> 
> Please contact me publicly or privately about that.  There have been 
> problematic ports, but as far as I know, everything should be good now.

Good to know, thanks, havent tried lately, lack of time.

> > Just as some BSD/IX projects have primary & secondary status CPUs,
> > FreeBSD could do similar with human languages ...  Easily add a
> > swathe of new auto translated secondary HTML formatted languages.
> > When/ if enough volunteers offer to improve translations, edit to primary.
> 
> We kind of already have that, although the secondary type is where the 
> user manually uses Google Translate or one of the other services on one 
> of our HTML documents.

Translation automation (whether of tree data &/or URLs could be
implemented as a project, eg a Google Summer Of Code project, or a
funded project if the foundation wanted to.

Machine translations are ever improving.  For normal text,
they're quite understandable now, (at least in European languages
I'm familiar with) merely sometimes ugly / clunky, but usable.

Technical manuals ideally benefit from better (human) translations,
but not available particularly for minority languages.  Users
operating computers multi-lingualy already know to first read in
their local translated language for max.  speed, & flip to foreign
original where things seems unclear. That tip for newbies could be
in a frame of the automatic generated trees.


> > Not me though. In 1985 I was contracted to automate Unix src/ translation to 7
> > languages, but I don't enoy defects & inconsistencies of human languages.
> 
> If you would like to try out the PO translation system... :)

Thanks, I did have a quick look, but no time.

Human time is valuable & limited, Automatic translator robots are
ever improving, free, & in unlimited quantity; translating is becoming
de-skilled.  Better that human time is reserved for non robot work:
Writing, & improving original docs & progs. Filing & repairing bugs,
Helping individuals in whichever language forums.  Evangelising
localy in foreign languages, etc.

Cheers,
Julian
--
Julian Stacey, BSD Linux Unix C Sys Eng Consultant Munich http://berklix.com
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