Re: support for multilingual Packages files?
On 07/30/2001 01:53:57 PM Steve Langasek wrote:
>> On Mon, 30 Jul 2001, Radovan Garabik wrote:
>> > And we should make a conclusion about this.
>> > I guess you agree current situation is bad, and should be corrected.
>> > The question is, which way to go: make Packages ASCII only, since
ASCII is
>> > an intersection of all used encodings, or make Packages UTF-8, since
>> > UTF-8 is a union of all used encodings?
>>
>> > Do not take me wrong, I am well aware of your reasons for ASCII only
>> > Packages, I just feel a bit more radical :-)
>>
>> We cannot change all the world's software in a day. Being 'radical' is
a
>> disservice to our users, who need a system that continues to work
between now
>> and the day that UTF8 is available everywhere.
I was trying to stay out of this flamewar, but now I have to point out that
UTF8 sounds like a perfect goal for unstable in the next release.
After all, people are used to unstable having radical changes, does not
always work, change all the software for new library versions, etc.
However, sneaking a policy change in at this time, is not a good idea given
the ongoing freeze.
May even take two releases, one to provide a full tool set that can handle
UTF8 without barfing, but provides all data in plain ole ASCII, and then
the next release people can go hog wild adding UTF formatted content for a
smooth upgrade path...
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