Re: Package Descrption I18N Proposal
On Thu, Dec 03, 1998 at 03:56:22PM +0000, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote:
> I suppose a basic question is whether you want
>
> (a) to put all the localisations for a given package into that package,
> or,
>
> (b) to make a "localisation package" that localises a whole set of
> packages.
>
> Debian is unlikely to ever need a localisation for more than a small
> proportion of the several thousand human languages known to science,
> but even if only a hundred languages are involved, method (b) seems a
> lot less frightening than method (a).
>
> So, I'm trying to argue that, ideally, language-specific stuff (and
> that ought to include English-specific stuff) shouldn't go into a
> package called prog_1.2.3.deb, say, at all. An <L>-speaking user should
> install prog_1.2.3.deb and <L>_X.Y.Z.deb to get an <L>-speaking prog.
You can arg the same in the other way: an L-speaking user don't need
all the text translations for programs that they'll never installed.
I don't think we can find a general solutions for everything. I prefer
to see all localisations for a package in the same package until it
get too big. After that, the maintainer can decided to subdivide the
package, just like the package-doc.deb scheme.
> There's the problem of what to do if the localisation package is older
> than one of the packages that it applies to. A solution would be for
> the package to contain symbolic identifiers that it spits out instead
> of the localised text when the localised text is not available. These
> symbolic identifiers could be the English text - as in GNU's gettext -
> but I would argue that it would be better, at least in many cases, for
> them to be short and fixed, like variable names, because that way you
> save disc space for people who don't need English, and it allows a
> maintainer to improve the wording of an English message without
> breaking all 99 other localisations.
>
> If you treat package descriptions this way, then they don't belong in
> packages at all. The package should only contain a version number for
> the package description that enables apt's successor to look up whether
> it has an up-to-date text in the user's preferred language.
>
> Does what I'm saying sound right, in principle?
>
> Edmund
>
For localizations, a simple alternative to the package files will be
enough, IMHO. We can maintain a md5sums of the descriptions for a known
valid version (more work for the I18N maintainers who have to check the
work everytime the description even for typographical reason), or the
maintainer can warn when the package description change (more subject to
errors).
--
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Fabien Ninoles GULUS founder
aka Corbeau aka le Veneur Gris Debian GNU/Linux maintainer
E-mail: fab@tzone.org
WebPage: http://www.callisto.si.usherb.ca/~94246757
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