Australis schedule and l10n (localization)

[Francesco Lodolo [:flod]]

Hi,
first of all sorry but, having just subscribed, I couldn't reply to the 
original message (Australis schedule update #2 [1]).
Back to the subject: please don't forget about localization in your 
schedule.

In the past days I've tried to analyze what's changed between 
mozilla-central and the ux branch. All string changes seem to be 
concentrated (please correct me if I'm wrong) in two files: browser.dtd 
and a new file, customizableWidgets.properties [2].

> We're still planning on landing as soon as possible in Firefox 25.
> We currently have three landing blockers...
Not sure if these two bugs qualify as blockers, but it would certainly 
make sense to fix them before landing on central and exposing strings to 
localizers
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=887853
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=882582

> We're planning to land in 25, but also to back-out immediately after the
> uplift to Aurora (Aug 5th). Australis will stay on mozilla-central
> (only) until Firefox 26 uplifts to Aurora (Sep 16th), with intent to
> ride the 26 train thru to release.
I think you meant "before" the uplift to Aurora. Unfortunately that's 
quite a problem for l10n.

This is a visual diff of the difference between central (left) and ux 
(right) for browser.dtd
http://www.diffchecker.com/1799z37k

You're adding 29 strings, but you're also removing 17 of them, most 
important from the main UI. Most localization tools will remove those 17 
strings for localizers working on mozilla-central, and then they'll need 
to add them back for mozilla-aurora.

So, if you plan to to disable Australis just before the uplift to 
Aurora, a viable solution would be to add back those strings on the UX 
branch, *before landing Australis on central*. By doing this:
* Strings will be available but unused on mozilla-central from the 
beginning (strings will not be marked as obsolete for localizers).
* When Firefox 25 moves to Aurora, localizers will have all the strings 
they need for Aurora plus a bunch of unnecessary Australis strings, 
which they can decide to remove.
* When you feel ready to move Australis to Aurora, you can remove those 
strings on mozilla-central and let the change ride the trains.

Note that this will cause some problems anyway for localizers who work 
on l10n-central (smaller teams work on mozilla-aurora), e.g. porting QA 
fixes between branches, or merging mozilla-aurora and l10n-central. But 
I guess that's inevitable.

I hope this makes sense to you, if not please ask :-)

Francesco

[1] https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/firefox-dev/2013-July/000475.html
[2] 
http://hg.mozilla.org/projects/ux/file/default/browser/locales/en-US/chrome/browser/customizableui/customizableWidgets.properties
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