Re: unstable in the middle of the Bokmal transition?

[Petter Reinholdtsen <pere@hungry.com>]

[Adrian Bunk]
> First of all:
> I don't speak a single word of any of the Norwegian languages.
> 
> For Bokmal, there seems to be a transition no -> nb in progress.

Yes, Norwegian Bokmål is changing locale from no_NO to nb_NO.  I
expect it will take a few years before the transition is complete.

> Judging from the current state, Debian 3.1 might ship with something
> that is in the middle of the transition leaving Bokmal in a not very
> usable state.

Actually, we try to do it in a way that make sure it is still usable,
even in the middle of the transition.  The locale can be set to either
nb_NO or no_NO as long as the fallback langauge list includes both nb,
nb_NO, no and no_NO.

> Is there any plan to get all Bokmal translations into a consistent
> state for Debian 3.1?

Nope.  I do not think we will manage to update all translations in all
packages in time.  Also, I do not expect all package developers to
accept such changes before the nb_NO locale is available in most
commonly used distribution.  The change is still too new, so it will
take some time before the nb_NO locale is usable all over the place.
For example, the glibc in Debian is still missing the nb_NO entry in
the locales SUPPORTED list.  This will have to be fixed before the
nb_NO locale can be the default for Norwegian Bokmål.

(Yes, all of this is a pain for us using the Bokmål locale.  We will
just have to try to reduce the pain as much as possible.)

This transition is coordinated with the Bokmål translator for RedHat,
Kjartan Maraas.