Hi all,
As you probably very well know, Mozilla is gearing up towards releasing
a mobile OS based on Gecko and HTML, codenamed Boot to Gecko, or B2G.
It is a stack comprised of a Linux kernel and low-level userspace layer,
with Gecko running on top of it, and all UI and other apps implemented
in HTML and JS. Gaia is the name of the UI, which will consist of HTML5
apps, like the Homescreen, Dialer, Contacts, Browser, Email, Gallery,
Camera, Clock, Calculator, Lockscreen, Settings etc.
See
https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Architecture#Terminology for more
information about the architecture and codenames.
We will be soon kicking off the localization effort for B2G.
The plan is this:
- the UX freeze this Friday, July 20th,
- the first string freeze the next Friday, July 27th,
- the second string freeze TBD, probably the first week of August,
- the deadline will be Tuesday, August 21st (more than 3 weeks total).
Why two string freezes? We are already hearing from developers that
they won't be able to freeze everything by 7/27 (think error messages
and rare and unexpected paths the interaction might follow). We prefer
to freeze what we can early (7/27) and start the localization right
then. For the second string freeze we will probably see some additions,
but I'll do my best to limit changes to already localized strings.
What's the workload? We don't really know yet for sure, as not all the
UI has landed yet. Today's numbers are this:
~500 strings in Gaia
~200 strings in Gecko/toolkit, but there's a good chance that we will be
able to reuse Mobile translations here.
(FYI, the entire Firefox Desktop with toolkit is ~6600, Firefox Mobile
is ~5000 strings.)
Lastly, keep in mind that the first devices will be marketed in South
America, so we will be focusing on Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese for
the first release. This does not mean, however, that we can't ship B2G
with more locales available, for users in the said geographies, and for
testing everywhere else. We are also investigating the feasibility of
having langpacks for B2G.
So, who's in? :)
Best,
-stas