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Re: additions to http://www.linux.org/dist/nonenglish.html



In message <[🔎] 19990210081313C.maehara@debian.or.jp> you wrote:
>Yes, the goal of the Debian JP Project is not to develop "Japanese
>Debian add-ons", but to make i18n efforts of Debian itself from
>Japanese (as well as other languages) point of view.
>
>It is true that we have a lot of packages (some of them are not
>Japanese-specific so they are useful for non-Japanese users) not yet
>contributed to Debian. IMHO, it is mostly because many Japanese
>developers feel difficulty or tiresomeness in becoming a official
>Debian developer (yes, it is not difficult nor tiresome, IMO), but the
>official packages from the Debian JP Project is increasing one by one.

I realize that the process of getting localization changes into the
main distribution can be a lot of work.  I am glad you guys are
trying (and succeeeding) in the arduous job of internationalizing
Debian/GNU.

>I know that there is an effort to make i18n'ed boot-floppies. But to
>support Japanese, what we have to do is not just translating the
>dialog messages, but putting kon2/konfont (which enables displaying
>Japanese on console) into the base system, implementing multibyte
>support of dialogs and so on. And currently there is no official
>policy or mechanism for translated manpages, program messages, window
>manager menus etc.

Yes, and also consider that we try to upstream our patches as much
as possible (or at least we should!).

>Generally, current i18n is mostly "for English and Europian users". We
>should promote "true i18n" by solving many problems in creating "real
>i18n'ed operating system".

Yes, I hope Debian is soon the first truly international free-software 
distribution.  

My believe is that we need *strong* statements in the Debian Policy
to help internationalization.  These would include technically 
optimal soluations to the problems and more that you raised above.

Let me know what I can do to help this effort.

--
.....A. P. Harris...apharris@onShore.com...<URL:http://www.onShore.com/>


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