Re: this all this xxx-jp nonsense (was: Re: ITP: grep-ja)
Hi,
On Wed, Sep 01, 1999 at 09:20:35PM +0900, Ken N. wrote:
>
> Let's think about the Emacs.
Better not :)
Emacs is such a beast that even versiopn discrepancy warrants a duplication
of packages (see emacs19 vs emacs20 packages).
But of course your point is well taken. There are always exceptions to
general rules, and nobody says that there must never be such a thing as a
-ja package. Only in most cases we want a merge.
Consider that someone has a japanese friend and he comes to visit him and
then he wants to show his computer. Wouldn't it be great if everyone on the
whole world can switch on japanese output/input by setting LC_ALL to ja,
without installing additional packages?
> Merging those forked softwares is a right way and the best way, but
> just collecting those forked softwares will be the next best way
> when it's so hard to get the best way... this is what I want to say.
It's not really better, only temporary. Forking doubles the effort, because
you have to update the software yourself and so on... forking is really a
very short-time hack only.
> It seemed that a number of xxx-ja(or -jp) packages could be
> merged into original xxx packages. This may be a good chance
> to make good communication. I believe that the most of Japanese
> Debian developers already have the intention of making good
> communication, and just don't have self-confidence about their
> own abilities for the communication. I know that even a Japanese
> who is very good at English often says ``Oh, sorry, I'm not good
> at English... ''. Funny :-)
That should not be a problem! I have never, ever seen any prejudices about
bad english in any free software mailing list. On the opposite, I had some
kind replys of people correcting me when I did a bad mistake (for example,
saying the opposite of what I mean by accident).
I am not a native english speaker, too (I am german), although it is easier
for me easier because my native language is not as far from english as yours.
But let me assure you that I never had any problem understanding the meaning
of any parts of the emails from our japanese fellow developers, and this is
the only thing that counts. And if there is a problem in understanding, we
can (and will) simply ask again.
Let me finish this mail by thanking you and the whole Debian - JP group as
well as all the japanese free software developers for working on the
software and i18n. It's so important, and only you can do this work. Keep up
the good work! (And don't forget to share it with us).
Thanks,
Marcus
--
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