Trying to wrap my head around the 4.0…

Trying to wrap my head around the 4.0 silence, here are a few personal thoughts. They’re not directed at anyone in particular, as I can’t judge other factors that may be impacting the issue, and are just an attempt at trying to summarize the issue (this one issue, obviously; there are others):

  • 4.0 is coming and we have, yet again, no string freezeString freeze The term "string freeze" is used by the core team to mark the end of changes to the strings of an upcoming release. A string freeze also means that there will be no more strings added to the core project. Sometimes a string freeze has two phases a soft freeze and a hard freeze. A string freeze is announced on the Polyglots blog by the current release lead.
  • We have no Dev project in Translate with 4.0’s stringsString A string is a translatable part of the software. A translation consists of a multitude of localized strings.
  • It’s August. In many places around the world people are on holidays, which makes the effort to translate and validate what will most certainly be a torrent of new strings nearly impossible
  • We keep hearing about (and seeing in betas) the monumental (and very laudable) effort to focus on localisation
  • We were announced this: no one on polyglots that I know was involved in any kind of defining discussion prior to this announcement
  • As far as I can tell, no polyglot is involved in the current discussion either. Granted, this may be due to a lack of initiative to participate, but, given the above, an understandable one
  • The bare minimum would be to provide some feedback. We all understand that schedules are tight and contribution is voluntary, but a little heads-up goes a very long way.

Summing up, what we see is our work, defined outside this group, piling up, with what seems the expectation that “oh, polyglots will translate when everything else has been taken care of”, apparently oblivious the fact that we’re responsible for providing WordPress for more than half of total downloads worldwide.

If you feel that you have something to add, do discuss the points as you see fit, but please keep the debate civil, polite and constructive. We all (and I mean all) work hard, disrespect has no place here.