The "new" languages in Debian Installer

[Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org>]

(from a discussion I had in the indlinux mailing list. I enlarge the
focus and CC all "new" languages registered translators as several
things are detailed informations for all these people)

Ravi Shrivastava wrote:

> OK, then may be I will send you 25% translated stuff
> and as soon it is found
> working, then only I will finish it?


I received a 50% translated Hindi file, checked it roughly for obvious
PO mistakes, found none, and commited it to the Debian Installer SVN.

Hindi has been added as "prospective" language for Debian Installer
along with Malagasy, Vietnamese, Serbian, Northern Sami, Irish,
Macedonian, Tagalog, Afrikaans and Estonian. We will probably soon add
Wolof when I'll get news from Samba...:)

To be precise, this means what follows:

-the core d-i translations (what we call "level1") are handled in d-i
 SVN, in trunk/packages/po/hi.po

-these translations do NOT spread out to Debian Installer packages,
 which means that the next release of D-I will NOT use Hindi in the
 list of supported languages, nor will it support any other
 "prospective" languages

-the general statistics page does NOT mention Hindi, though the 
 whole framework for i18n (http://people.debian.org/~seppy/d-i)
 has now ready files for hi. The same applies to other prospective
 languages

The d-i team plans are currently being discussed for the best way to
handle development after the next release:

We are currently in the process of releasing d-i RC2. This "Release
Candidate" version is aimed at being the version of the installer
which will ship with the released Debian "sarge" version.

Either RC2 is considered OK and it will be renamed to "1.0" or
whatever we will call it....or a few security and critical fixes are
added...a new (RC3?) release is made and becomes "1.0".

PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL THIS NAMING SCHEME IS CURRENTLY UNDER
DISCUSSION. This is a short summary of ongoing discussions and I have
simplified a few things. The names themselves are just a convenient
way to mentions things. Only "RC2" is official.

Hindi (and the other "new" languages) will NOT go into any of these
releases. Adding new languages is too likely to break things, because
of size constraints.

After Debian sarge is released (along with Debian Installer "1.0" or
whatever we will call it), we will probably (please note the
"probably" here) have two branches:

-a "sarge" branch where security and "critical" fixes will go

-a "development" branch where new stuff will go

(repeat after me: the names of the branches are NOT official yet)

The graphical installer, if it becomes a reality, will obviously go in
"development".

We have not decided whether a new language will be authorized to
"sarge" or only to "development". This may depend : some languages
only add size, but their rendering is already supported (Estonian,
Macedonian and a few others)...some others may need developments which
will be made only in "development" branch (Hindi, obviously....Thai
maybe if we happen to find translators).

I hope this gives you a better understanding of what will probably
happen in the field of Debian Installer i18n/l10n, either for Hindi
or for other "new" languages.

About Hindi: what we need or will need is for sure at least someone
taking responsibility of the Debian Installer translations:
maintaining existing translations, adding new ones, receive spam^W
mails from me, etc.

I'm under the impression (nice French) that you, Ravi Shrivastava, are
in the process of becoming that first contact. Can you confirm this to
me and confirm that, yes, you're ready for this?

I've also CC'ed Rajesh Menon, who I was in contact with about Hindi
translations and who has currently commit access to the d-i
SVN. Rajesh, working along with Ravi may be an option, I guess...