Translation error in Launchpad changes (KMail/kdepim)

I thought upstream translations were supposed to take precedence?

Upstream translations are used as defaults, but giving them precedence would make it impossible for langpacks to ever make corrections of /upstream/ translation bugs, either.

Given our experience so far, we'd take that risk.

[01:33:48] <slangasek> ScottK: the translation in the kde-l10n-de source package matches the one shown at https://translations.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/kdepim/+pots/kmail/de/991/+translate
[01:34:05] <ScottK> Hmmm.
[01:35:16] <ScottK> Maybe it got changed upstream after our last update from there.
[01:35:28] <ScottK> I'll see if I can get someone to look into it.
[01:35:52] <slangasek> the string in language-pack-kde-de-base also matches
[01:35:58] <ScottK> OK.
[01:36:30] <ScottK> Let me put that in the bug and see what we can find out.

Is it possible this got changed in kde svn after our last export?

The correct string in rosetta corresponding to the upstream report is <https://translations.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/kdepim/+pots/kmail/de/1448/+translate>.

upstream translation:
msgid "(match any of the following)"
msgstr "(trifft auf eines der Folgenden zu)"

langpack translation:
msgstr "(alle der Folgenden müssen zutreffen)"

Actually I think it was https://translations.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/kdepim/+pots/kmail/de/1448/+translate

Fix committed, thank you for notifying me in time!

Strings affected:

https://translations.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/kdepim/+pots/kmail/de/1448/+translate
https://translations.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/kdepim/+pots/kmail/de/1449/+translate

https://translations.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/kdepim/+pots/kmail/de/2615/+translate
https://translations.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/kdepim/+pots/kmail/de/2616/+translate

The upstream translation definitely needed to be fixed, but my original fixes weren’t much better either; I’m sorry for that.

Thanks for the quick resolution!

As it's been mentioned in the comments, here's some more detailed info on upstream precedence, for those interested:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Translations/KnowledgeBase/TranslationsPrecedence

The latest language-pack-kde-de-base upload now includes the following translations:

msgid "(match any of the following)"
msgstr "(eine der folgenden Bedingungen muss zutreffen)"

msgid "(match all of the following)"
msgstr "(alle folgenden Bedingungen müssen zutreffen)"

msgid "Match a&ll of the following"
msgstr "Alle &folgenden Bedingungen müssen zutreffen"

msgid "Match an&y of the following"
msgstr "Eine &der folgenden Bedingungen muss zutreffen"

These are not the upstream strings, but aside from some non-literal translation ("match any of the following" -> "one of the following must match"), the bug of having an *erroneous* translation has been corrected. Does the Kubuntu team consider this a sufficient resolution for final, or do further steps need to be taken to restore the pristine upstream translations?

Steve, FYI: I’ve already announced my changes to the KDE translation team and I’ll let them review any change I’ve made ASAP.

The solution at hand is good enough to resolve the particular issue at hand.

There is however a flaw in the translation workflow that lead to this. In general changing upstream translations is like a patch and Kubuntu likes to be very very concerned about whether a patch is necessary and how to carry it out. For maverick we will bring up a full featured patch spec, and I expect that we should work out a workflow a long with the ubuntu translators to move translations in line with the general patching policy we follow.

Such issues as the one presented here are not only horrible from a technical, but also from a social point of view. Upstream is quick on being upset with distributors when it comes to patching, but upstream is even more so when it comes to breaking translations. And as it is, KDE l10n pretty much hates us for how their translations and localizations always go down the drain in Kubuntu (be it for breakage in the infrastructure or translations issues). Any translation hickup that was caused by changes to their translations AND reported at bugs.kde.org is putting additional strain on our upstream relations, and if those relations can't use something, then it is additional strain.

So, this is definitely something to keep on tracking and resolve in mid- to long-term.

Moritz, please don't take this as personal critique, it is really a problem with the workflow at large. Nobody is perfect, but there should be systems in place to prevent us from letting our imperfection hit the user, unfortunately currently that is not the case.
Thank you for resolving this so quickly and bringing your changes to the attention of the KDE l10n team.