[Python-Dev] Translated Python documentation

[Nick Coghlan]

On 25 February 2017 at 01:10, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 06:01:59AM -0500, tritium-list at sdamon.com wrote:
> > …And then you need another one to
> > check what was written.  These are practical problems.  There are
> > extant services to support this, they are expensive in either money or
> > time, and the docs produced usually lag behind English quite a bit.
>
> Is this a good use for some PSF funding? Would companies be willing to
> invest money in translating Python documentation?
>

Translated documentation is certainly one of the things commercial open
source users appreciate, and hence redistributors are willing to fund in
the general case (see
https://access.redhat.com/documentation/ja/red-hat-enterprise-linux/ or
https://docs.openstack.org/ja/ for example)

For the specific case of the PSF, credible development grant ideas are
always worth considering (as those are an excellent way for the PSF to help
enable community activities).


> Just because we're Open Source, doesn't mean that everything we do has
> to be purely volunteer.
>

Right, but this kind of problem is also one of the major reasons I tend to
harp on about the fact that the commercial redistributors active in the
Python community aren't contributing as effectively as they could be, and
their existing customers aren't holding them accountable for the failure.
Python's origins as a "scripting language for Linux" means it is often
still perceived that way in the commercial sector and treated accordingly,
even though it has subsequently matured into a full-fledged cross-platform
application development and data analysis platform.

Even those of us already working for redistributors can't readily provide
that missing accountability, as any reasonable business is going to weigh
the costs of additional investment in any given area against the potential
for increased future revenue. That means the most effective pressure comes
from industry partners, governments, existing customers, and credible
potential customers (i.e. folks that have the ability to affect
redistributor revenue directly) rather than from redistributor staff or
community volunteers (as we're pretty much limited to using risk management
and hiring pipeline based lines of argument, rather than being able to push
the "future revenue potential" line directly).

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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