On Wed, Aug 22, 2001 at 01:01:08PM +0200, Richard Atterer wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 21, 2001 at 10:19:45PM +0200, Michael Bramer wrote:
> > no. But this is also not planned jet.
> [snip]
>
> You raise a lot of valid points for not trying to get the translations
> into the packages. Obviously, this makes things much easier for you,
> but I still think there are disadvantages in the long run:
>
> - The translated info is separate from the source package. This
> violates our policy for all other package-related info; that
> *everything* related to the package should be in the source package.
> (BTW: Surely the "Description-de" can be put in debian/control?)
1.) I don't now this policy. Hint?
2.) not *everything* related to the package is in a source package
(libs are normal not in the same source package,
doc-linux-[de,es,fr,..] are not from one source, kde-i18n-* are
from kde-i18n and not from kde-base, ...)
3.) see last point
> - By placing the translated packages on your homepage, you put them
> outside the official Debian mirror network, and also outside of what
> most regular Debian users are aware of. For the translations to be
> truly useful (and available to *all* the people who need them), they
> need to be *fully* integrated, contained on Debian CDs etc.
yes. good point
1.) I ask the ftp-master to put this first on /poject/ and later make
Packages-<lang> files as next step
2.) see last point
> - If you continue providing the translations this way, your dpkg
> modifications will never go into the mainstream dpkg.
I/We don't make any modifications on dpkg/apt.
Now we only collected translation and make the work.
If the dpkg maintainer/the ftp master/the apt team/... support realy
translated description we can provide all formats in all encodings per
script.
> - Imagine you become less interested in this at one point - the
> translation project will just "fall asleep", become out-of-date and
> unusable, and all the translation work will have been in vain! IOW,
> you are a kind of "single point of failure" here! ;-)
I don't make the work. The work make the translators and this is not a
single point of failure. This all is like dinstall and the
maintainers... (maintainers -> translators, dinstall -> ddts)
If ddts don't have a real bug and the translators work in future, I
can die. Nobody will see notice this on the translation...
> WRT to the Packages files getting too big, this should be addressed by
> putting per-language Packages files onto the FTP server - e.g. the
> Packages-de.gz file would contain German descriptions where available,
> and English ones for the other packages.
this is one solution. We make this now with a extra dir per languages
on gluck.
> All in all, I think not trying to get the translations into packages
> is dangerous. The current system is good to get the project up and
> running, but you should plan ahead. Maybe it would make sense to
> - file wishlist bugs
> - set up an "overrides"-like mechanism for "Description", too. The
> usual overrides file already works on other parts of the control
> info; this may not be a lot of work.
I like this 'overrides'-like mechanism for 'description'. This is IMHO
the next step. (patch dinstall and make Packages-<lang> file on the
flay on ftp-master.
Now the last point:
IMHO the best way for all this translation problem is this:
we must separate the 'programm' and the 'text'
1.) make translation groups (one per languages), who translated all
text. (man pages, description, debconf templates, info pages,
README's, po files, ...)
2.) include in the 'real' package only the english textes
3.) make per script 'co' packages. one per languages, with only one
languages in it.
4.) improve apt and dpkg. With this you can config your languages and
if you make a apt-get install gmc, apt will install gmc and all
configured 'co' pages. (maybe gmc, gmc-de and gmc-fr)
one special rules for the description:
- The package description don't work with this approach. You need the
description befor the installation (apt-cache search...).
- make a po-like file with all english descriptions parts and one
translation. (one per langauges)
- store this files beside the Packages file.
- download this file with a apt-get update (only the configured
languages)
- and patch apt and dpkg with a gettext() function in its output
process with this po file.
This 'last point' is not well thought out. This is only a idea not a
real proposal. But maybe someone can use this idea or have comments?!
Gruss
Grisu
--
Michael Bramer - a Debian Linux Developer http://www.debian.org
PGP: finger grisu@db.debian.org -- Linux Sysadmin -- Use Debian Linux
The UNIX Guru's view of Sex: unzip ; strip ; touch ; finger ;
mount ; fsck ; more ; yes ; umount ; sleep
Attachment:
pgp6LJPkZhbEh.pgp
Description: PGP signature