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Firefox, world’s most popular, faster and secure web browser. It provides you lot of flexibility to customize your browser as you wish. Would you not like to get such a wonderful web browser Localized into your native language? I am sure, you would.

As I told in my previous blog post, I never got a chance to work on Mozilla Localization Project (MLP) before joining Red Hat, because we didn’t have enough time to work on it. But I was really eager to do it. Situation remained same till couple of months after joining Red Hat too, as I have entered into a Multi National Company now, which I have never expected and I had to learn many new things – How the processes in MNCs work, style of working in a world’s leading Open Source company, company culture, plus some internal tasks, etc. And of course, the main task was to localize Fedora into Gujarati, which I have never worked before too. So, it took me couple of months to actually plan and start the Localization of Firefox and Thunderbird into Gujarati (gu-IN).

Before I actually plan and start working on Firefox/Thunderbird Localization, the task has already been taken up by my native language community (Utkarsh) members. In the early December 2004, I heard that Mozilla has been localized by Utkarsh team into Gujarati (gu-IN) and released on 25th November. Before that, I wasn’t aware about the fact that Utkarsh team has actually started working on Mozilla Localization. The problem was from my side only. I never tried to keep myself in sync with Utkarsh team after I left Magnet. Then only, I realized that, How am I supposed to work in Open Source and with Open Source community. I talked with my friends over there in Utkarsh group and discussed future plans for Localization of various other Open Source projects. By then, they have already started working on Firefox Localization, which was an easy task for them, as they were already familiar with the Mozilla Localization process, which is quite similar to Firefox Localization. So, I have taken charge for Thunderbird Localization.

January 05, 2005, Utkarsh released Firefox 1.0 Localization on Utkarsh website and incorporated it into Gujarati Live CD – “Utkarsh”. I released Thunderbird 1.0.6 into Gujarati on IndianOSS on January 06, 2005. But, the thing is, language packs released for Firefox/Thunderbird on IndiaOSS/Utkarsh is not considered as official release of Mozilla, because it’s not tested and verified/approved by Mozilla. So, the next challenge for us was, to get Gujarati Firefox and Thunderbird tested and verified by Mozilla and get it included into upstream Mozilla. To all localizers, here, I would like to pass one important message:

Please don’t stop working on Localization of any open source project, until you get it released upstream! Otherwise, the whole world (may be, except Localizers) will not get the benefits out of your extraordinary efforts! Because world is actually aware about upstream projects only, but may not be aware about your language community website. So, for any Open Source Localization, may be run process within your community, but target upstream!

Back to the topic!  Getting Mozilla language pack upstream is not an easy task.  It’s not just that you completed the translation, means your language will get a place on Mozilla upstream. You need to be very accurate, complete the translation 100% (error-free) and follow the standard Mozilla Localization process strictly. If you miss anything out of these, your language will not get included on the Mozilla upstream! It took me lot of time to understand the process completely, even though it’s well-defined. Because it’s quite complex for the localizers like me, who used to follow the simple and easy process for any other major Open Source Projects for doing the Localization! Almost same time Amanpreet Singh Aalam, a co-ordinator of Punjabi Localization community – Punlinux – and I have started localizing the Firefox and Thunderbird. So, we used to communicate with Axel Hecht (nick: Pike), who is the Localization Lead for Firefox, Pascal, and many others from Mozilla team to help us getting our languages included upstream Mozilla. Axel has really made our life easy, while we were trying to figure out the process.

The process of Firefox/Thunderbird Localization involves four major steps:
1. Build/Join the team
2. Understand and follow the Localization process workflow
3. Build language packs
4. Get the language packs and/or translations included upstream.
I have tried to describe all of these steps in detail on this URL: Firefox/Thunderbird Localization Process , where I have put all URLs of official Mozilla Localization process. There are quite a few technical challenges as well, which we might talk later in other blog posts…

Even though we understood the process and followed it very well, kept Axel in loop all the time, it took around six months of time for us to get our languages actually released on Mozilla upstream for Firefox and Thunderbird both. Finally, Gujarati was available on Mozilla downloads urls (Firefox, Thunderbird) with release 1.5. That was really an achievement! Since then, I am continuously updating Firefox and Thunderbird Localization into Gujarati. And now it’s time to see Firefox 3 with Gujarati soon… Beta! and RC!

One thing, I would like to tell to upcoming Mozilla localizers that, “Once your language is released on upstream Mozilla, process of Mozilla Localization becomes easy compared to earlier! You just need to maintain the translations at the time of each release and resolve technical issues, if any issue comes.”

In 2007, July 13-15, I got an opportunity to present a talk and conduct the workshop on Localization in an event called “National Conference on Open Source“, organized in Ahmedabad (India), which is the largest city in the state of Gujarat. There I met Christofer Hoffman, the director of engineering of the Mozilla Foundation and Seth Bindernagel, who works on Mozilla’s evangelism team. We couldn’t spend much time on discussing the Mozilla and Localization, as both Chris and Seth has to catch the flight. But, we had a separate event for Mozilla in Mumbai (India) few days after this conference. The event “Join Hands with Firefox“, was organized by Nirav, where I have been invited to discuss about our future plans on Localization of Mozilla. To read about the event, read Seth’s blog. After this meet, we formed a group for Mozilla India Localization contributors, where we gathered all contributors from India, and discussed India specific things in Mozilla Development. You can find recent discussions here.

So, that’s all about my experience localizing Firefox and Thunderbird till date!