5 ms·

All talk. No show. That's EU. I'll believe it works after they finally have one success

input_sh 2y ago
Would you consider for example Firefox' completely-local translations a success? Directly funded by Horizon, made by a consortium of 4 European universities, now a part of Firefox?
- murderfs 2y ago
  They paid three million euros to integrate existing open source software into Firefox?!
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    No, EU funded Bergamot and HPLT projects. Integration came much later, but again as a part of Bergamot project. [0]: https://browser.mt/ https://browser.mt/ [1]: https://hplt-project.org/ https://hplt-project.org/ [2]: https://github.com/mozilla/translations?tab=readme-ov-file#acknowledgements https://github.com/mozilla/translations?tab=readme-ov-file#a...
    - shinryuu 2y ago
      Very grateful for those translations. Use them a lot!
- closewith 2y ago
  7 languages and a feature nobody to a rounding error uses? No, I don't consider that to be a research, economic, or technical success. Honestly, I'm not sure if you posted this is support of Horizon or against? The Horizon budget for 2021-2027 is €95.5 billion or ~€15 billion per annum. If a headline "success" is an unfinished implementation of translation in Firefox of a translation engine (Marian) built by the Microsoft Translator team, then it's safe to say Horizon is an unqualified failure.
  - Vinnl 2y ago
    I don't have the numbers at hand or know if they're even public somewhere, but telemetry shows that Firefox Translations is used a lot. Definitely on the list of successful new Firefox features. (I'm a Mozilla employee, but I have not worked on Firefox Translations.)
    - closewith 2y ago
      What is a lot? Before integration, it had ~490 users as an extension, vs ~800,000 for To Google Translate, the number one option. Offline translation has to be manually enabled per language in Settings. Frankly I don't believe there's any meaningful usage until I see the numbers.
      - e2le 2y ago
        >enabled per language in Settings. Do they? I tried opening a French government site[1] and received the Firefox pop-up offering to translate the page. I did not have to enable anything in settings neither is the French language model downloaded. It seems translations are enabled by default. [1]: https://www.elysee.fr/ https://www.elysee.fr/
        closewith 2y ago
        I stand corrected on this point, the language packs now auto-download. It's still a niche feature only partially built by a Horizon project (it was almost entirely built by commercial entities - MS and Mozilla) in a niche browser. It's an indictment of the Horizon programme that this is considered the pre-eminent success story.
        VagabundoP 2y ago
        Its actually helped me a twice the last two weeks and I would browse mostly English language sites and I imagine it would be great if English wasn't your first language. I didn't even know it was a new Firefox feature but I thought it was cool. Well done EU.
- CrimsonRain 2y ago
  Depends on how much money has been spent. Also money will be better spent with one common language instead of wasting so much time, resources and inconveniencing people with so many languages in this area.

Would you consider for example Firefox' completely-local translations a success? Directly funded by Horizon, made by a consortium of 4 European universities, now a part of Firefox?

murderfs 2y ago
They paid three million euros to integrate existing open source software into Firefox?!
- bayindirh 2y ago
  No, EU funded Bergamot and HPLT projects. Integration came much later, but again as a part of Bergamot project. [0]: https://browser.mt/ https://browser.mt/ [1]: https://hplt-project.org/ https://hplt-project.org/ [2]: https://github.com/mozilla/translations?tab=readme-ov-file#acknowledgements https://github.com/mozilla/translations?tab=readme-ov-file#a...
  - shinryuu 2y ago
    Very grateful for those translations. Use them a lot!
closewith 2y ago
7 languages and a feature nobody to a rounding error uses? No, I don't consider that to be a research, economic, or technical success. Honestly, I'm not sure if you posted this is support of Horizon or against? The Horizon budget for 2021-2027 is €95.5 billion or ~€15 billion per annum. If a headline "success" is an unfinished implementation of translation in Firefox of a translation engine (Marian) built by the Microsoft Translator team, then it's safe to say Horizon is an unqualified failure.
- Vinnl 2y ago
  I don't have the numbers at hand or know if they're even public somewhere, but telemetry shows that Firefox Translations is used a lot. Definitely on the list of successful new Firefox features. (I'm a Mozilla employee, but I have not worked on Firefox Translations.)
  - closewith 2y ago
    What is a lot? Before integration, it had ~490 users as an extension, vs ~800,000 for To Google Translate, the number one option. Offline translation has to be manually enabled per language in Settings. Frankly I don't believe there's any meaningful usage until I see the numbers.
    - e2le 2y ago
      >enabled per language in Settings. Do they? I tried opening a French government site[1] and received the Firefox pop-up offering to translate the page. I did not have to enable anything in settings neither is the French language model downloaded. It seems translations are enabled by default. [1]: https://www.elysee.fr/ https://www.elysee.fr/
      - closewith 2y ago
        I stand corrected on this point, the language packs now auto-download. It's still a niche feature only partially built by a Horizon project (it was almost entirely built by commercial entities - MS and Mozilla) in a niche browser. It's an indictment of the Horizon programme that this is considered the pre-eminent success story.
        VagabundoP 2y ago
        Its actually helped me a twice the last two weeks and I would browse mostly English language sites and I imagine it would be great if English wasn't your first language. I didn't even know it was a new Firefox feature but I thought it was cool. Well done EU.
CrimsonRain 2y ago
Depends on how much money has been spent. Also money will be better spent with one common language instead of wasting so much time, resources and inconveniencing people with so many languages in this area.