Streamlining openSUSE Translations Upstream
Quoting: Streamlining openSUSE Translations Upstream - openSUSE News —
Managing localization of desktop menus and applications takes a specific tool and approach that fills a gap but leaves inconsistent upstream translations.
Open-source translation standards have advanced over the years and the downstream-only model being used has proven to become inefficient, which is why Update-Desktop-Files Deprecation efforts are developing.
Over the past two decades, SUSE’s translation system has grown to cover more than 5,747 packages, with a total of about 380,000 translated strings. These efforts are labor-intensive and often redundant since many translations upstream already exist. The update-desktop-files tool contradicts an upstream-first policy. The SUSE-specific translations override upstream versions, causing inconsistencies and duplicating translation work. It also limits package maintainers’ control as translations are often integrated during runtime, which then appear different from what package maintainers expect. The tool adds complexity and requires SUSE-specific infrastructure (e.g., SUSE intranet and OpenQA VPN) that complicates maintenance and makes it challenging to align with certain open-source practices.