Comment 3 for bug 291226

No, you are wrong.
Any package that is in Ubuntu main, should be translatable via Launchpad. These translations are going to the language pack updates of Ubuntu and are not intended to be the general translation, which is the one in Gnome SVN.

About the cooperation between Gnome and launchpad: You develop software in Gnome SVN, the Gnome translators translate it, then you release a source package. This gets packaged by Ubuntu, then it's translation will be imported into launchpad. Here Ubuntu translators fix up problems with the original translation, then the translation will be packaged into language packs and deployed to users, who in turn will love Ubuntu because translations suck less than in other distributions ;). The Ubuntu translators (ideally, this is not always the case :() then export their updated po file and send it to the upstream translators.