Running on epty

This post has been sitting in my Drafts folder for a while now, as I wasn’t sure when the right time would be to publish it. It is basically my personal reflection on the last 5 years I have worked doing translations for free and open source software (FOSS) and a few lessons I learned along the way. It is also a rant against those who took my labor for granted. Hopefully this quick summary will help you decide whether you want to continue reading the rest of the post or not.

My adventures in the translation (or localization) world started some time in the middle of 2005. I had just started using Ubuntu as my main distribution and being carried away by the buzz and excitement surrounding this new comer, I started looking for ways to “give back”. Not that I hadn’t tried it before, but to tell you the truth, Ubuntu had back then the only friendly and welcoming community out there that wouldn’t treat you with scorn and arrogance if you were a new user.

Eventually I got to learn about the Ubuntu Brazil team and their effort to translate the desktop applications into the Brazilian Portuguese language. Now, I’ve been living in the United Stated for about 2 decades now and technological terms and jargon in Portuguese had never really entered into my vocabulary. In other words, I had absolutely no idea how to say things like “hard drive“, “File“, “Copy, or anything really in Portuguese. But I was determined to lend a helping hand and proceeded to learn on my own and by asking around.

Now, this is not a post about Ubuntu, so I’ll fast forward a bit to the time I became the coordinator for the Ubuntu Brazilian Translation team and was “in charge” of getting this massive collection of applications translated into Brazilian Portuguese before every single release. It was hard work but at the end of the day it felt great to know that more Brazilians would be able to enjoy GNU/Linux in their native tongue. Heck, under my leadership we delivered several releases of Ubuntu with very high levels of translations and absolutely no thank you from those profiting from out work!

After a couple of years I started to feel pretty good about my background in the software translations world. Filled with the best of intentions and the whole “Ubuntu” philosophy, I approached a few upstream translation teams to offer some help and see if our team could lend them a hand. Oddly enough, most refused my offer which only made me more confused. If they were struggling to get to 100% translations, why would they refuse help from “seasoned translators” such ourselves?

After organizing a few IRC meetings where many didn’t show up, some of the GNOME Brazil guys decided to give me a chance and hear my proposal. In the end we settled on the following plan: We, the “Ubuntu guys” would provide the labor (our team was much bigger than all other teams put together), and the GNOMErs would tell us what to do, how to do it, and tell us to “do it over” if our work did not conform with their standards. If this sounds a bit one sided to you, it’s because it was. There was some unexplained hostility towards us that we could not understand. Some of the members of my team eventually excused themselves, telling me in private how frustrating the whole experience was. “We’re breaking our backs here and they treat us like garbage,” said a disgruntled translator. This was in 2006.

This same type of treatment followed us wherever we went. Always the unprovoked hostility and unwillingness to work together. It wasn’t until around the middle of 2007 that someone finally broke the silence and told me: “You guys got the heart in the right place, but did you know that nothing that you have ever translated for Ubuntu comes back our way?” I didn’t know what to say. “What do you mean?” We’re good guys… the whole World benefits from our work… doesn’t it?”

Turns out I had been mistaken about the benefits of doing translations for a distribution. Turns out also that a lot of upstream translators who are not Ubuntu users (and therefore do not have an account in Launchpad) also have strong feelings against the work being done by the “Ubuntu guys”. But instead of channeling their ill feelings toward the entity that designed the machinery, their anger fell on the translators, peons in the whole scheme of things.

I’m glad to say that I woke up from the stupor that had held me for quite some time in a state of delirium and even fanboyism. Yes, I was an Ubuntu fanboy not too long ago! I too drank from the koolaid and was a major source of free PR and goodwill for Canonical. It was early 2007 when I finally moved on and decided to work directly with the upstream projects, embracing a new world full of opportunities and chances for someone as dedicated as myself.

Boy, was I wrong about certain things! For a long time the stigma of having done translations for a distribution stuck to me, causing many unnecessary discussions and personal attacks from people who I had never met or heard before. Worse of all, the internal interests and political agendas within the smaller groups was very harsh and no matter how many packages I translated or how many hours I spent organizing, teaching, reviewing and translating massive documents, I was never given the acknowledgement by my peers or anyone for that matter. Did you know that GNOME 2.26 was literally translated by two people into Brazilian Portuguese? And that one of them was yours truly?

But I kept going for a long time, choosing to ignore all of these things and focus in the main cause: deliver a completely localized operating system for those who speak Brazilian Portuguese. Through the years I saw coordinators and committers being replaced by people with no background what so ever in translations or even from outside the team! There has always been intrigue and malicious interests in pretty much every community out there, but I had always hoped that one day my hard work would be recognized and aspired to one day become the coordinator for the GNOME Brazilian team. Alas, that day never came.

But I kept going and joined several other teams who received me with open arms. For quite some time I was the sole translator, reviewer and committer for Xfce, LXDE, and Openbox. I even joined the effort to localize MeeGo and make it upstream friendly. Whatever free time I managed to get my hands on was spent either translating, reviewing or committing translations to these projects (and GNOME, off course). Even while juggling a brand new career with a steep learning curve, a second child, moving to a different state and seeing my bank account dwindle down, I still made the time to keep going.

Until I ran out of gas! This morning I have chosen to step down as the coordinator for the LXDE and MeeGo teams and have already passed this position to one of my teammates. I am also stepping down as the administrator of these 2 teams in order to focus on my family and some of my pet projects. I will eventually pass the coordination of the Xfce team as well and will only act as a member of said teams, offering a helping hand every now and then (this already applies to GNOME).

This does not mean that I’m no longer involved with the localization of free and open source software. It only means that I’m now sitting on the backseat and am happy to let someone else drive. It also means that I feel unappreciated and even though the thought that every single GNOME user who runs his/her system in Brazilian Portuguese is doing it because of the fruit of my labor and others makes me feel very proud, the truth is that it does not put food on my table.

I have to finish this post by publicly thanking Margie Foster from the MeeGo project for being the only person who has shown appreciation and gratitude for the work I’ve done! Really, thank you!

Happy Birthday

Received the following email this morning:

Last night our Transifex installation turned 1 year old. I think with
101 users and  4012 submissions in 45 languages it has been quite a
step forward compared to the previous mailing list-based submission
system. For that I'd like to thank all the people involved, most
noticeably Jannis for the initial setup, the Transifex guys for help
and fixing bugs, Og for the appliance we've been running for the last
half year and of course the Translators with all their patience and
effort to make it a success.

Cheers,
The Xfce development team.

This has an extra special meaning for me, not only because I am one of the 101 users contributing translations to the Xfce project, or because I’m a huge supporter of the work the Transifex guys have been doing, but because of their use of the Transifex Appliance!

You see, a while back I needed a “pet” project to use as a learning tool to learn about creating, maintaining and deploying software appliances with the technologies we develop here at work. Transifex was the project that caught my attention, mainly for being a tool for translators and for using Django under the hood.

I’ve been maintaining the Transifex Appliance for quite some time now, all by my lonesome self and putting a lot of my free time. So it feels great to hear that the appliance is being used in a production environment and that it is used by several users!

So, congratulations to the Xfce translators and Nick Schermer for sticking with the appliance and providing tons of great feedback on how to improve it!

Python 3 Object Oriented Programming

I can’t claim to have looked hard for a Python book on object oriented programming (OOP) but I was immediately attracted to the title of this book. Sure, you can find small tutorials here and there about some specific facet of OOP but I don’t recall ever reading something that covers designing public interfaces using abstraction, encapsulation, etc, etc with good and practical examples! If you have, please drop me a link in the comments.

Python 3 Object Oriented Programming by Dusty Phillips does a very decent job of not only introducing the reader to the terminology and the object oriented paradigm (something that is not too complicated to understand) but also offers a comprehensive step-by-step guide that will take you from theory to a real world project. I’ve always felt that anyone can pick up a book about programming and learn its syntax by heart. But putting it all together and designing something that will actually work is something that you usually learn by reading other people’s code or, if you’re lucky enough, from a mentor.
Overall I felt that the book was well written with a great selection of sample code. Whether you already know how to do object oriented programming for other languages or are new to the whole concept and want to learn everything about it, I definitely recommend this book!

Make sure to check the free chapter (Chapter No.7: Python Object Oriented Shortcuts).

Meeting Kurt

While waiting for my connection flight, I had the great pleasure of finally meeting in person my good friend KurtKraut, someone who I met online during my ‘buntu days and have kept in touch for the last 5 years. It was great to hang out with him and not have to chat via Skype or IRC! I definitely hope to one day host him here in North Carolina one of these days.

We spent some amazing 8 days (excluding days spent at airports and travelling by car to/from our final destination) enjoying some relatively mild days by the beach, even though it was Winter down there! Every day we’d be invited to eat lunch or dinner at someone’s place and at any given moment my dad’s house where we were staying, would be swarmed by an army of cousins, uncles, aunts and friends who wanted to say hi and meet my kids!

Mine!!!

When we weren’t busy chatting, we were busy eating and drinking! I went overboard this time and eat a lot of everything that got in front of me! One funny thing about going back to the place where you grew up after so long is that you miss silly, little stupid things… such as the bubble gum you used to buy when you’re little… the candy, ice cream, bread, even soda that everyone who’s still living there takes for granted. I must have gained quite a few pounds with all the food, beer and caipirinhas consumed in this trip, but what the heck! I don’t get to visit Brazil very often, so it is worth it.

Now, next year will be the 20th anniversary that my parents came to the USA with 3 teenagers who couldn’t speak a single sentence in English, so my family is planning a big family reunion. Hopefully I will be able to sneak out a bit and get to meet some other friends from the South of Brazil… through the years I’ve received many invitations for dinners and BBQ Brazilian style! And who am I to disappoint my friends?

Coffee Cup

A while back I wrote about how I first got hooked on coffee and received some really good comments and suggestions for new coffees to try. I was immediately attracted to one coffee in particular: Zoka! Don’t ask me what it was but there was something about the name that tickled my fancy. So I sent their customer service department an email and asked if they would send me a few samples. The very next day I received a reply and the promisse that they would send me a couple of bags. Since I had also received 2 other bags of coffee from friends to try I figured I’d report here how the “coffee experiment” went.

Now, I don’t pretend to be an expert or a connoisseur and my oppinion here is nothing but, well… my own oppinion and is not meant to influence what brand of coffee you should buy. I just enjoy drinking coffee and hope you’ll find this useful.

The Great Coffee Experiment

Zoka‘s coffee arrived at my doorstep a few days later on a Friday afternoon. With names such as “Costa Rica Calle de Copey” and “Tangletown Blend“, the two neatly packed bags of whole beans looked very organic-y. The neat label in the front telling you when that specific bag was put together was a nice touch, almost like someone took their time to hand pick the coffee beans and gently places them into the bag (and it smelled great too!).

I first tried the “Costa Rica Calle de Copey” with its promisse to deliver a rich, fruity flavor. After grinding (espresso) enough coffee for my wife and I and impatiently waiting for the brew, we were both impressed with the strong flavor of melon and hints of lemon! I mean, I usually drink my coffee black with sugar (though I’ve drastically cut down on how much sugar I’m using now) and am not too fond of fruity coffee. Maybe because most of the time fruity coffee is a bit too acidic for me. I must say however that I was not put off by this blend and I can see myself drinking it out on the back porch after dinner.

First GNOME Board Meeting

Today I attended my very first GNOME Board of Directors meeting. Though I won’t be able to vote on issues until July 1st, it was great to witness how the process works and be able to ask questions and receive answers directly from current and former board members.

I must say that the entire meeting felt very streamlined and ran smoothly, partially because of people like Vincent, Brian, Germán and Paul who seem to be on top of everything and juggling several balls at the same time! Stormy must sleep very well at night knowing she can count on people of this caliber to steer the project.

Emily and Bastien, new members like myself, also made their presence felt by asking questions and getting involved in some topics that were discussed. I asked  a few questions myself and tried to absorb as much as possible, juggling work and the action taking place on Gobbi and IRC.

I feel bad for not being able to attend GUADEC this year as I’ll probably be the only Board member not to be present… but I am looking forward to working with these guys and gals and fill the shoes of those who are departing this year!

Django 1.2 E-Commerce

“Django 1.2 E-Commerce“ starts with a very ambitious goal: design, develop and deploy a functional ecommerce web site for the fictional CranStore.com company. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

I started flipping through the usual introductory pages explaining what Django is and why use it for a project like this. It was all fairly brief which already led me to believe that knowledge of Django’s inner works and basic setup and configuration was required to follow along.

Well, the instructions are not as streamlined as other programming books I’ve read and it could be fairly tricky to follow the examples and logic if you’re not already familiar with how Django works. There are several typos in the example code as well, mostly due to missing spaces between the commands and arguments. Adding to the confusion is the style the author chose to deliver his explanation of specific code changes, displaying snippets of code that will leave the reader wondering what specific file is being discussed.

Now, if none of these things sound scary to you, you’ll be happy to know that the project itself is fairly well designed and worth your time. It was also the first time I saw an example of integrating Django with Google Checkout to set up a “shopping cart” mechanism, and by the time you’re done with the second chapter, you will have a very basic but functional ecommerce web site.

The subsequent chapters were a blur, talking about adding external modules and services to enhance your site’s searching capabilities as well as exposing the data from your “store” via APIs and generating reports with ReportLab. The author also talks about making use of javascript to add that AJAX-y feeling that we’ve come to expect of most modern sites and how to take advantage of S3 storage to sell your product.

The last chapter finally walks you through a few different ways you can deploy your final project to the world out there. I thought it was interesting to see Fabric being mentioned as a driver for deployment, as I have been playing with it at work to help me perform a series of tests on several different hosts for QAing purposes. Come to think of it, this may have been the first time I’ve seen it mentioned in a book, so I’m glad that this project seems to be picking up steam.

Overall, even with the issues of poor proof checking of the source code and the “everything and the kitchen sink” approach to the first chapters, if you’re not new to Django and need to get some ideas on how to design and develop an ecommerce website, you may want to check out this book. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Week in Review

Another busy week at work means a quiet week here…

Heck of a week and GNOME Foundation Board of Directors

137 issues resolved and counting!

One important piece of news is that I have been elected to the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors together with other 6 members! Thank you all of you who voted for me! I intent to devote a bigger chunk of my time to be a proactive[...]

137 issues resolved and counting!

One important piece of news is that I have been elected to the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors together with other 6 members! Thank you all of you who voted for me! I intent to devote a bigger chunk of my time to be a proactive, hands on and very vocal member of this group and will strive to blog about my experience as much as I can!

Next week should be just as crazy as the last 2 but I will try to blog at least once to let people know what’s going on in my neck of the woods!

Three more days until my birthday! Want to take a look at my wish list?

It was a very busy week, so I didn’t spend the same amount of time writing as the previous weeks. Thank you for the kind wishes on my birthday!

Also, thank you Conzar, Aigars Mahinovs, Paulo Dias, Tassos Bassoukos and Rodney Dyer for the awesome tips related to playing World of Warcraft on Linux!

Playing World of Warcraft on Linux with Wine

Yes, I’m still alive and kicking. Been really busy at work and haven’t had the time or energy to write anything here. I have however kept my New Year’s resolution of reading a book during lunch break every day! I’m currently reading 2 books at the same time (check what other books I have read and those I have still waiting on my queue in the front page of my blog):

• For The Win by Cory Doctorow
• The Fourth Part of the World by Toby Lester

I feel that it is impossible to read Doctorow’s book and not feel the urge to play World of Warcraft (WoW). Impossible! I think the last time I played this game[...]