To Robert Millan, Debian developer for win32-loaderCc: Jim Park, developer of NSIS Unicode; this bug at the BTS; NSIS package address
On 05/07/2008, at 7:58 PM, Robert Millan wrote:
On Fri, Jul 04, 2008 at 11:11:46PM +0930, Clytie Siddall wrote:Is this a fork/branch of NSIS? In that case, I'm afraid we can't use your translation untill Unicode support is merged (either in upstream or in the Debian package).NSIS Unicode is actually a separate project. The main NSIS project refuses to support UTF-8, despite years of increasingly desperate requests from the languages that require it (like Vietnamese). In the end, this guy had to start his own project to solve the problem. He always uses the latest NSIS code, but adds his modifications so it supports UTF-8.From the link in their site to forum discussion about merging this in NSIS, it doesn't seem like they refuse to, but simply have concerns about minor things like which charset to use for examples, etc. Are you sure this isn'tgoing to be merged in the near future?
I've CC'd Jim so he can explain this better. All I know is that we translators have been formally requesting UTF-8 support in the main NSIS project for _years_, at least 3 years in my case. The NSIS project has repeatedly said that they "have no intention of supporting UTF-8". If they are finally changing their mind, that's great, but I wouldn't count on it.
A problem with switching completely to UTF-16 is that this seems to beincompatible with Windows 98 (believe it or not, there are many users ofthis program who run it under Windows 98). Is it possible to keep itmulti-charset just like now, but using UTF-16 only for the languages thatneed it?
Again, Jim can answer this better. I don't actually run Windows myself, but nearly all my users do, so I translate a lot of software which runs on Windows. I agree that older systems have to be supported in some way, since in third-world countries people often can't afford modern systems. (I've talked to developers in India, for example, whose computers are extremely old and only held together by spit and prayer. I remember losing touch with one developer because his makeshift hardware repairs (involving string and sticky-tape) had fallen apart, and that meant he no longer had computer access.)
OpenOffice.org has just started using NSIS Unicode, to support all thelanguages otherwise left out in the cold, and Mozilla also use it. I should talk to Christian Perrier about this, because it's really an i18n matter. But I thought you should also be concerned, since you're packaging Windows installer software.It isn't really up to me. If the functionality is in Debian, and is usable (see my concern above), I have no problem with using it. You should also talk with Paul Wise (the maintainer of nsis in Debian); I'm cloning thisbug for you.
OK, if Jim doesn't mind providing the info, I'm happy to help get Unicode NSIS into Debian. I can't package it, but I can help join some of the dots. (Note: I will be unavailable for some time soon [1-2 weeks?] due to medical treatment but hope to be able to participate again afterwards.)
from Clytie Vietnamese Free Software Translation Team http://vnoss.net/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=projects:l10n
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