Bug 972256

First, I want to say that I do appreciate your review and your persistence. There were some embarrassing grammatical faults that might have been missed without you.

I do want to be clear, however: I'm not going to replace every instance of 'on' in the text. Translators and users understand the usage of the word 'on' in contexts other than vertical proximity. Your drawing attention to it does make it seem used excessively, and I'll keep it in mind with future work.  

Many of your suggestions appeared to request rephrasing based on personal preference, often to the detriment of the technical accuracy of the copy.  However, the review was useful in identifying unclear passages, even if it was not applied verbatim.

Here's what I changed:
The sentences about syslinux were confusing, and should read better now.
Corrected the spelling error of "Performace" Co-Pilot
Added the 'to' in the crtools section.
Added a 'from' to the node.js docs package sentence

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that you're requesting formal acknowledgement. Bug reporters, while vital to the open source community, are not typically listed as upstream contributors.

Why the changes. 

In French, Spanish, or non-American English, the word "on does not make sense and cannot be used.  The French cannot say "Je vous parle sur Gnome". (if you do not know the French language, sur means on something physical). Neither is it possible in Spanish or Hebrew to say (in their language) I will talk to you on an individual item. Yes, I concede that we can talk on a topic or grouping. 

So, when we have a Bilingual French, Spanish, or other language individual reading the English text, they have to rethink what is the message.

The second point that was corrected is when you have multiple nouns (subjects) in the same sentence, followed by and, with a qualifier. The gross example was with maria.db and mysql.  Was the large following for maria.db or was it for mysql?

By the same token, A sentence with two subjects is followed by the next sentence beginning  "This  xxxx"   What does the xxxx part refer to? Does it refer to the first item in the previous sentence or the other item.  

I am for writing clearly, and to allow a non-English person to understand the release note, because he is faced with the challenge of a) translating and then b) trying to understand the English readily.

You may not have worked in a technical publishing company. I did two years of writing and having the same corrections slapped back at me.  

I absolutely made sure that the author's description that was in his mind, was correct. Where I was not sure, I marked up the changes with a question.

Now, the next thing to consider is recognition. The proof reading effort is very laborous, and takes hours.  What you saw was not the product of an automated software, but of reading in detail each section, of saying to myself, would a non-English person understand the sentence, or is it correct.

There was more than 10-12 hours spent to proofread 5 chapters. It is no small task. It requires a person with an Software, network and hardware engineering background. That effort deserves recognition 

Why did I raise this bugzilla request? ans: Because the release note itself indicated to do it.

There are 5 CC'd individuals. Let them decide together.  I will go with the flow. I am sure some of the changes will not make it. But that is what a proof reader expects.

One last comment, The F19 is not officially released, and until it is, the release notes are not cast in stone.

Translations are never word-for-word.  The basic sentence structure of the Spanish language is completely different than that of the English language.  It is up to the translator to make the transition between the languages.  Changes should not be made at the detriment of the facts and not to the readability of the source language.

Eric, I agree with you. English has so many dialects and differences in understanding sentences. From Jamaica, USA, Canada, England, India and elsewhere, the phrases for universality are what I am after.  
Regarding the use of on.
Le livre est sur le bureau. Je veux parler sur annaconda is the translation from
"The book is on the desk. I want to talk to you on annaconda.". In French we cannot use sur annaconda.  In Spanish can I write "Quiero hablar con usted en anaconda." or should I write " Quiero hablar con usted acerca de anaconda.". I think that the use of "on" for "about" is American practice only.

I also had another situation in the sentence comparing maria.db and mysql and the reference "has a great following." or something like that. I took it to mean that mysql has a great following, but I believe the author meant it to be maria.db has a great following. (refer to the text I uploaded).

I firmly believe that there are some important rules for documentation.
a) The sentences should be at a high school level (standard public writing practices)
b) The sentences should have no spelling mistakes.
c) The links are verified at time of writing, and again by the proof reader.
d) That someone who uses Google translate or other software gets a good translated sentence.

Regarding languages, my wife is Spanish, I am English, but I work 95% in French. At home we speak all three languages. I cringe from the little English errors. 
 
All I am after is to allot time for a good proof read of a public document before it goes public. Proof reading is a very difficult task. You must know the subject well, and then know your language well.  

There are too many discussions about this one Release Note. You may do with it what you want. I did what I had to do.  I most certainly do not have exclusivity on group decisions.

  

  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/buglist.cgi?regetlastlist=1434366

I think the gist of this conversation relies on the individual translator. I would expect that anyone that is doing the translation is able to understand the usage of the phrase and not use a literal "on" as used in your example.

You have to remember that the translators typically are translating into their native language. So in your example, you wouldn't do a literal translation as you know that wouldn't make sense so the documentation is "correct" in both dialects.

Please close. It has delivered its message. Please do not kill the messenger. (grin)

We have a QA process and an established bugzilla workflow. Please don't change the status of bugs assigned to others.

Created attachment 766773 [details]
French Release notes as copied from the Website.

Created attachment 766774 [details]
French Release notes

Created attachment 766775 [details]
French Release Notes Fed 19 (MS word or LibreOffice Format)

Please forward to the L10n group (French Translation markeup and authoring of missing translations)