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I18n of Packages files



I think one of the most important part of Debian system that is not i18ned
is the packages descriptions. It is essential for the user to be able to
choose the packages he/she needs.

I suggest the following ($lang means two-letter language code):

 - creating Description-$lang field

 - creating control-$lang, containing only Package and Description-$lang
   fields
   rationale:
	putting several encodings in a single files makes editing harder
	some - editor(s) seem to mangle some characters

 - creating Packages-$lang files, containing only Package and
   Description-$lang fields
   rationale:
	- putting all translations into main Packages file would cause it to
	  grow enormously
	- putting all fields to Packages-$lang would cause the fields to be
	  repeated as many times as many languages there will be, and
	  inconsistencies if not all packages' descriptions are translated

 - adding support for all this to dpkg, apt etc...

well, this is just a rough proposal, please comment on it

Marcin

PS: I'm not a developer
-- 
+--------------------------------+ The reason we come up with new versions
|Marcin Owsiany                  | is not to fix bugs. It's the stupidest
|porridge@pandora.info.bielsko.pl| reason to buy a new version
+--------------------------------+ I ever heard.            - Bill Gates



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