On Tue, Sep 19, 2000 at 08:49:50PM +0200, Marcin Owsiany wrote:
> 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 agree. But I don't think, a translated description is for dpkg
importent. More importent is IMHO to translating the Packages[.gz]
files on the mirrors.
Think about that a minute:
If we have package-$LANG.gz-files on our mirrors, with all the fields,
and libapt download this package-$LANG.gz files, all apt-tools
have translated descriptions...
With this the whole package don't need translated texts. The translated text are only
in the package-$LANG.gz files. This files are maintaining from one or
more maintainer per language.
(they work only on a po-like file, without the other non
translated fields. This pre-Packages-$LANG file is merged with
the english Package-file to the new translated Packages file.)
I see a lot of pros:
- no work on dpkg and other Tools. Only a nice, short patch
to libapt: download Packages-$LANG[.gz] and if this file not on
the server, download Packages[.gz]
- all tools has the translated descriptions (apt, dselect,
gnome-apt, ...), because the /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin
and the /var/lib/dpkg/available files are translatet
- nice little packages without 130 translations of the descrition
- no work for the package maintainer. Normally the package
maintainer don't know more as 2-4 languages and he can't work
with bugreports about the wrong translation.
I see one big con:
- On a system is only one descrition. The system admin can't
switch the language without download new package files...
comment on it?
Is here a apt mailing list?
Gruss
Grisu
--
Michael Bramer - a Debian Linux Developer http://www.debian.org
PGP: finger grisu@db.debian.org -- Linux Sysadmin -- Use Debian Linux
Win0.98 supports real multitasking - it can boot and crash simultaneously.
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