[Lvfs-announce] Localized update descriptions

[Lvfs-announce] Localized update descriptions

[Richard Hughes]

Hi all,

At the moment update descriptions are only provided by vendors in
en_US locale which is unsuitable to show to 70% of fwupd users as they
can't read English. In the LVFS 2021 survey, about 50% of vendors said
that they could provide the firmware release notes in at least one
extra language without too much effort.

I've just deployed a change to the LVFS that does a few things:

 * At upload time the LVFS now parses and saves the update
descriptions in another language, for instance:

  <releases>
    <release>
      <description>
        <p>This release adds support for verifying the firmware
contents using fwupd.</p>
      </description>
      <description xml:lang="fr_FR">
        <p>Cette version ajoute la prise en charge de la vérification
du contenu du micrologiciel à l'aide de fwupd.</p>
      </description>
    </release>
  </releases>

 * The update textbox has been split out of the existing
"Component->Update" panel into a new top-level section called
"Component->Description"

 * The "Component->Description" panel allows the QA user to switch
between text for each of the uploaded languages. In the common case of
having just en_US then the extra UI controls are hidden and it looks
the same as before. In the future we might allow vendors to *create*
new translations here rather than only allowing edited uploaded
locales.

Something to make very clear; we're *not* going to require vendors to
provide translations before they can upload to the LVFS nor so the
firmware can move to stable. We might allow users with a new
@translator ACL to add translations in the future, but that would be
subject to the existing affiliation rules that each OEM has with their
ODM or IHV. Allowing official translators to upload new localized
strings is phase 2 and not implemented here.

And as per usual, please heed the usual reminders about making your
update descriptions easy to read please: We've had a few cases
recently where users have reported bugs where the uploader has just
written:

 * Fixes bugs

..and also a case where the uploader went too far the other way with a
description like:

 * Raise SCL for GPIO 0x12 when aborting the in-flight transaction.

..and neither of these are terribly useful to the end user. The update
description is going to be shown in the UI, perhaps in a desktop
notification, for potentially hundreds of thousands of users and it's
super important to use high quality prose that informs the user of
what was fixed and how important it is to update.

As usual, if anyone has any concerns or questions please reach out to
me off list.

Richard.