Translation updates/Maintenance help
Hello to all dpkg and apt contributors,
As you probably have noticed, both packages you maintain are listed in
Debian Installer "level 4" translation list
(http://people.debian.org/~seppy/d-i/translation-status.html)
This roughly means that, as the package are more or less partly
involved in the installation of a Debian system and as they display
information to users, without requiring their input, during a default
system install, they have been integrated into the list of packages
for which translators work is done.
This of course partly explains the high number of translation updates
and BRs you may have received in the past months.
I however notice, from the above mentioned page that several language
are currently missing the full 100% score because of some updates
being needed for dpkg and/or apt.
I'm am under the impression that you all care about l10n as much as
possible but may lack the needed resources for being able to handle
the flow of translation updates you receive (please correct me if I'm
wrong...false impressions come very quickly).
Hence, this is a formal help offer for beginning to take care of
l10n-related bugs on both packages, just like I'm already doing for
several packages involved in Debian Installer l10n statistics
(iso-codes, console-data, console-common, popcon, debconf, aptitude,
tasksel, base-config, discover1, shadow...).
Such help could save a lot of time to the packages "real" work as
taking care of l10n updates requires specific knowledge of gettext and
related utilities but very less often coding capabilities, provided
the program/package i18n is correct (and I'm sure dpkg and apt i18n
falls in that category).
I think that all maintainers of the above packages may confirm that I
have already proven some abilities for doing such work and that I
never broke their work by interacting with it.
I have now established a work method for each package l10n, which
always includes some basic checks, and may include specific checks for
the packages (such as "no breaking space", for instance..:-))).
This does not only includes commiting fixes to package's repositories
but also properly tagging bug reports and handling changelog entries.
For some packages, this also includes handling the package branches
and commit changes to the most appropriate one, of course after
discussing with maintainers for the most appropriate way to handle the
updates.
I also have established a well-working network of personal relations
with several translators or translation teams, which often allows for
quick l10n fixes to get into the above packages when needed.
The only limit indeed is of course free time. However, apart from the
starting work, which involves draining the BTS from pending updates,
such work has proven to be low time consuming. Anyway, another plan I
have is training and work with other trusted i18n workers and thus
slowly build a network of "l10n maintenance assistants" which could be
a great help to Debian packages maintainers.
At the minimum, if such co-maintenance is not OK for you, please at
least consider some temporary help in order to get a translation
upload of your packages before the distribution release. There is
still maybe time enough for that.
In any case, thank you for having read that mail up to here and having
survived my rough English....and, of course, thank you for your work
on the packages you maintain.
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