Project Philosophy and Policy¶
OmegaT is a computer-assisted translation (CAT) tool designed by and for professional translators.
The philosophy of the OmegaT project reflects the core values of the free software movement and the spirit of collaborative contribution.
The OmegaT project strongly believes that high-quality translation tools should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their financial means or location.
Freedom and Accessibility¶
OmegaT is free software licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), ensuring it remains free for anyone to use, study, modify, and distribute.
The GNU General Public License grants you:
The freedom to run OmegaT as you wish, for any purpose.
The freedom to study how OmegaT works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish.
The OmegaT project provides full access to the source code as a precondition for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others.
The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.
By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. The OmegaT project provides full access to the source code as a precondition for this.
By granting such freedoms, OmegaT has a commitment to maintaining software without hidden costs or commercial service lock-in.
Open and Volunteer-Driven¶
Volunteers carry out development of OmegaT.¶
Everyone is welcome to take initiative, suggest ideas, and contribute in their own way, whether by improving the code, writing documentation, reporting issues, creating educational materials, or helping with translations.
There is no single way to contribute — contributors are encouraged to take initiative and shape their involvement.
OmegaT uses a flexible and open style of collaboration.¶
Contributors are trusted to choose what they want to work on, based on their skills and interests.
Project core members help set the overall direction, provide guidance when needed but they do not control or assign tasks.
Contributions that impact the OmegaT application itself (either through code or documentation) should be discussed to see if they fit in the the overal project orientation. Such contributions are expected to be of high quality and can sometimes be rejected if they do not match that expectation. Project core members are here to help so that it never happens.
See below to understand how we work.
Translator-Centric Development¶
Unlike many commercial CAT tools, OmegaT is developed by translators with translators in mind. Features are prioritized based on real-world use cases provided by our user community. We emphasize workflows that benefit translators, not management systems or proprietary services.
Contribution Guidelines¶
While contributions are welcome, all proposed changes — especially those involving source code — are reviewed by the development team to ensure they benefit OmegaT’s user community. Contributors are encouraged to follow best practices as outlined in the Contributing to OmegaT guide to streamline the review process.
Collaborative Evolution¶
The future of OmegaT is shaped by its users. Feature suggestions and enhancement ideas can be submitted through an established process known as an RFE (Request for Feature Enhancement). While not all suggestions can be implemented, many have been adopted thanks to active community participation.
Feature requests are more likely to be accepted if:
They clearly benefit a broad range of users
A developer volunteers to implement them
In some cases, the requester funds the development
Sponsoring development is a valid and welcomed way to contribute. If you’re interested in funding a specific feature, the development team can provide an estimate and discuss its feasibility.
Simplicity and Modularity¶
We aim for a clean, sustainable codebase with modular architecture. New functionality is often implemented as optional plugins. This keeps the core lightweight and flexible. This also empowers contributors to experiment with new features without bloating the main application.
Minimal Dependence on Proprietary Services¶
OmegaT development does not rely on cloud-based or commercial services.
It is possible to contribute to OmegaT without using Github. We use GitHub because it provides a number of useful services, however, if you don’t want to use GitHub, you can still contribute by submitting issues and patches.
As far as feature development is concerned, users should never be required to register or log in to any third-party system to use the core functionalities of the application.