Copyright 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Unported License.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

Migrate to Zanata for translations

https://storyboard.openstack.org/#!/story/328

Since Transifex no longer maintains an external, open source version of the cloud-based service the translations team uses, we need to move to an open source alternative. The infrastructure and translations teams have decided to use the open source (LGPL) Zanata project hosted by the OpenStack Infrastructure team.

Problem Description

We currently do not host any translations tools, so a translations server will need to be deployed for use with Zanata. All of our tooling is built around Transifex so these scripts will also need to be adjusted and then the translations imported into the new tool.

Proposed Change

Switch from Transifex to Zanata for translations.

Alternatives

Decision to use Zanata was based on what translators believe is a superior UI and a workflow similar to that of Transifex. However, if Zanata does not work for some reason, we can look into Pootle again.

Implementation

Assignee(s)

Primary assignee(s):

  • lyz

  • jaegerandi

Work Items

  • Package Zanata client so that we can install it as part of the syncing jobs.

  • Figure out how to setup the initial Zanata config file and whether we can do this dynamically or whether we have to add it to the repositories.

  • Find or develop Puppet modules for Wildfly and Zanata, the Zanata team will be sending us Ansible playbooks for Zanata which we can convert to Puppet.

  • Use these Puppet modules to bring up both a production and a development server for Zanata.

  • Modify translations scripts that sync translations with Transifex to work with Zanata. In the first iteration, the scripts should continue to support both Transifex and Zanata for syncing and as they evolve to do import only from Transifex to Gerrit.

  • Since the Zanata API does not allow to download only files that are at least 75 per cent translated (or any other number), enhance our scripts that we download the files for all languages and filter locally out the not sufficiently translated files.

  • Begin running modified translations scripts on the development server and work with the Translations team to test with some dummy translations against a sandbox.

  • Work with Translations team to document the new translations workflow.

  • Work with Zanata team to enhance Zanata so that we get notified whenever new languages are available for translation. Note: Currently the list of languages for a repository is stored in the local Zanata config file and thus we need to adjust it - or find a way to ignore the local config file - to download translated files for all languages.

  • Export all translations (not only the 75% translated ones) from Transifex and import all the files into Zanata. Also import old versions of projects with translations (for example horizon/icehouse, horizon/havana) as reference and seed for translation memory.

  • Notify translations team that the export has been completed and disable translations capability in Transifex now that everything is exported and we’re ready to turn on the new service.

  • Point new scripts at new Zanata production server and go live, announce to the Translations team.

  • Notify broader development community about the switch and identify any way it impacts them.

  • Document new infrastructure in OpenStack Infrastructure Documentation.

Repositories

A new puppet-zanata repository will need to be created, along with updates to system-config to consume this module and one for Wildfly, which can probably be found upstream.

Servers

A translate.openstack.org server will need to be created.

We will also need to re-install or replace the translate-dev server to be our development platform using the Wildfly and Zanata Puppet modules (it currently has an old demo of Pootle).

DNS Entries

DNS entry for translate.openstack.org will need to be created.

If we create a new server, DNS for translate-dev will need to be updated to point at the new development sterver.

Documentation

Documentation for our Zanata server setup will need to be added to the ci.openstack.org documentation.

Translator-facing documentation will need to be updated for the new tool.

Security

These new services run effectively on Ubuntu, so we don’t anticipate security problems on the core operating system.

A couple of lifecycle notes about Wildfly and Zanata:

  • Wildfly is “aiming to deliver new final major versions in around a nine month cycle” so we will need to stay on top of upgrades for that. More at: http://wildfly.org/governance/

  • Zanata has a major release we will want to upgrade to every 3 months.

Testing

A development server with the prepared automated scripts pointed at a sandbox will first be used to confirm that translations are being processed properly.

Dependencies

We may be pulling in an external Puppet module to support Wildfly.

Otherwise this should be an independent change in our infrastructure aside from the previously mentioned updating of automated scripts.