[Systems] [IAEP] Multi-lingual relaying on Sugar IRC channles is stopped

[Aleksey Lim]

On Tue, Nov 01, 2011 at 12:44:56PM +0000, Aleksey Lim wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 06:26:33PM +0000, Aleksey Lim wrote:
> > Hi all!
> > 
> > Starting from the recent times, translation[1] on Sugar IRC channels
> > stopped working properly (messages started being skipped). This feature
> > is disabled entirely for now, since missed IRC posts on translated channels
> > might lead to many confusions.
> > 
> > Infrastructure Team is working on the problem to fix this issue
> > as soon as possible. Sorry for inconveniences.
> > 
> > [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Service/meeting/Usage#Multi-lingual_relaying
> 
> The problem is that Sugar Labs infrastructure used Google translation API,
> but Google stopped providing translation API as a free (free-as-a-beer)
> service[1]. So need a replacement.
> 
> In fact, the original problem is that Google API, as a free-as-a-beer
> solution that doesn't have, as an API, handles to accept contribution
> to improve the quality of translation or customize it for people needs,
> was used as a translation backend for Sugar Labs IRC channels (thanks to
> the author of these lines). Because, it is obvious that just translation
> is not the right final goal that should be taken within the Sugar Labs.
> The purpose should be to let people teach new languages, do it in
> cooperation with another people and contribute to the free
> (free-as-a-speech) database that might be reused by another learners.
> 
> Obviously, using another, as a replacement of Google API, free-as-a-beer
> translation API is the wrong way to go. There is the Apertium[2] project
> that might be a good candidate to achieve goals mentioned above.
> 
> Apertium is a free/open-source platform for developing rule-based
> machine translation systems. There are 28 language pairs [3] that are
> stated as stable in Apertium, and there are a bunch of them
> in development stage. It supports less languages than Google does but it
> might be the right basis to start, i.e.,
> 
> * Looks like our most need is en-es/es-en, Apertium can provide it right
>   now;
> * Having a Web application, a la translate.sugarlabs.org, we can accept
>   contributions from the community to customize current language pairs and
>   add new ones.
> 
> The current plan is setting up en-es/es-en translation on Sugar IRC
> channels to let people try it.

Unfortunately, I'm really busy in Paraguay these days before traveling
to Lima. Help from volunteers to setup Apertium instance on
jita.sugarlabs.org (there are useful hints on [4) is welcome.

> [1] http://code.google.com/apis/language/translate/overview.html
> [2] http://www.apertium.org/
> [3] http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Main_Page

[4] http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=28303600

-- 
Aleksey