Re: Do not touch l10n files (was Re: DDTP issue)
On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 08:27:02AM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 12:07:29PM +0200, Martin Quinson wrote:
> >
> > Your engagement for the quality of your package is really great. Only, I
> > think that you are not responsible of the translation. I know that there is
> > a lack in debian framework concerning this point, but it really should be so
> > ('cause maintainer cannot be responsible for translations they do not
> > understand. How do you handle tranlations in russian, japaneese and
> > bokmal?).
>
> This is a fundamental question for which there definitely isn't
> consensus, and it is a fundamental polity (governance) issue.
>
> One is that the linguistic teams have full and ultimate responsibility
> over the translations, and there is no recourse or appeal if the
> maintainer doesn't like what they have done.
>
> Another position is that the maintainer is ultimately responsible; he
> or she may delegate responsibility to helpers, just as the Debian
> Leader may delegate certain responsibilities to subordinates.
> However, it is clear that the maintainer or the Debian Leader is
> ultimately responsible, even if the wise maintainer and/or Debian
> Leader may not choose to exercise his or her perogatives very often.
As far as Debian packages are concerned, the latter undoubtedly applies.
But having full control does not mean randomly breaking translations
or imposing inappropriate rules; maintainers should not perform any
changes in l10n files unless they *really* know what they do. And
in such a case they should notify the translator to give him a choice
to argue if he disagrees, otherwise he could miss the changes.
Denis
Reply to: