In the public discord channel there was a request to make the translator separately available (e.g. on pypi).

We plan to do this, introducing a namespace package "downward" (or eventually "fastdownward") that will later also accommodate our anticipated python bindings for the search component.

Version 1:
I made a first attempt, simply packaging the translator with an additional script (cf. https://github.com/aibasel/downward/pull/290).
It has the disadvantage that internally, we would still call the translator as module "translate" (instead of "downward.translate"). This difference affects the usage of the translator as well as the translator-internal imports.

Version 2:
To avoid this, we would naturally rename the "src" directory into "downward" (cf. https://github.com/aibasel/downward/pull/291).
This variant has the disadvantage that with the next release it causes some extra work for all forks to get into sync.

In version 2, I still only add the extra files for packaging (such as pyproject.toml) with a separate release script. We could alternatively explore the option to have them in the root folder (such that it can be locally installed via pip) but I would only pursue this option if someone speaks up for it.

A preliminary translator distribution can currently be installed from Test-Pypi: https://test.pypi.org/project/downward-translate/
This is not ready for review (no documentation, ...) but I mention it in case someone wants to try it out.
Do not use it in productive code, these versions will disappear in the future.

We agreed that the translator versions will follow the general Fast Downward versions and we are not bothered by the slight difference regarding 0 (e.g. 24.06 would be called 24.6).