Background
It was around 2005 when I started doing translations for Free and Open-Source Software. Back then I was warmly welcomed to the Ubuntu family and quickly learned all there was to know about using their Rosetta online tool to translate and/or review existing translations for the Brazilian Portuguese language. I spent so much time doing it, even during working hours, that eventually I sort of "made a name for myself" and made my way up to the upper layers of the Ubuntu Community echelon.
Then I "graduated" and started doing translations for the upstream projects, such as GNOME, Xfce, LXDE, and Openbox. I took on more responsabilities, learned to use Git and make commits for myself as well as for other contributors, and strived to unify all Brazilian Portuguese translations across as many different projects as possible. Many discussions were had, (literally) hundreds of hours were spent going though also hundreds of thoundands of translations for hundreds of different applications, none of it bringing me any monetary of financial advantage, but all done for the simple pleasure of knowing that I was helping make FOSS applications "speak" Brazilian Portuguese.
I certainly learned a lot though the experience of working on these many projects... some times I made mistakes, other times I "fought" alone to make sure that standards and procedures were complied with. All in all, looking back I only have one regret: not being nominated to become the leader for the Brazilian GNOME translation team.
Having handled 50% of the translations for one of the GNOME releases (the other 50% was handled by a good friend, Vladimir Melo while the leader did nothing to help) and spent much time making sure that the release would go out the door 100% translated, I really thought I'd be nominated to become the next leader. Not that I felt that I needed a 'title' to show off to other people, but in a way I wanted to feel that my peers acknowledged my hard work and commitment to the project.
Seeing other people, even people with no previous experience, being nominated by the current leader to replace him was a slap in the face. It really hurt me... but I made sure to be supportive and continue to work just as hard. I guess you could say that I lived and breathed translations, my passion not knowing any limits or knowing when to stop...
But stop I eventually did, several years ago, when I realized how hard it was to land a job that would allow me to support my family (back then I had 2 small kids) and continue to do the thing I cared the most. I confess that I even went through a series of job interviews for the translation role that Jono Bacon, Canonical's former community manager, was trying to hire, but in the end things didn't work out the way I wanted. I also flirted with another similar role at MeeGo but since they wanted me to move to the West Coast I decided not to pursue it (I also had fallen in love with my then current job).
Pylyglot
As a way to keep myself somewhat still involved with the translation communities and at the same time learn a bit more about the Django framework, I then created Pylyglot, "a web based glossary compedium for Free and Open Source Software translators heavily inspired on the Open-tran.eu web site... with the objective to 'provide a concise, yet comprehensive compilation of a body of knowledge' for translators derived from existing Free and Open Source Software translations."
I have been running this service on my own and paying for the cost of domain registration and database costs out of my own pocket for a while now, and I now find myself facing the dilema of renewing the domain registration and keep Pylyglot alive for another year... or retire it and end once and for all my relationship with FOSS translations.
Having spent the last couple of months thinking about it, I have now arrived at the conclusion that it is time to let this chapter of my life rest. Though the US$140/year that I won't be spending won't make me any richer, I don't foresee myself either maintaining or spending any time improving the project. So this July 21st, 2014 Pylyglot will close its doors and cease to exist in its current form.
To those who knew about Pylyglot and used it and, hopefuly, found it to be useful, my sincere thanks for using it. To those who supported my idea and the project itself, whether by submitting code patches, building the web site or just giving me moral support, thank you!