Re: About dpkg translation, please consider i18n when choosing words
> Please, developers, remember that you are trying to _communicate with
> the user_, either directly in your English, or via your translators
> interpreting it. Maximize your chances of effective communicatỉon by
> being clear and accurate, and by using natural, everyday language.
You know, dpkg has a very long story as this is obviously one of the
oldest packages in Debian. It has been maintained by several people in
its history, most of the time focused on features rather than
accessibility.
The traditional karma that "sysadmins have to speak the geek
jargon...and of course understand English" is highly visible in dpkg,
but things are changing.
Two years ago, it was barely impossible to have a translator
involved in dpkg development, ask Martin Quinson. Things have changed
a lot, and will change again.
There is probably a need for someone to review all program's messages
inside the code and change them appropriately, taking into acocunt
their context (some *have* to be very scarce).
Several dpkg strings indeed pertain to dselect, the good old package
management tool, which is a full screen tool, with all constraints of
such things when it comes to display. Strings here are *very hard* to
change, for instance.
Some other strings are also very obscure messages or error messages
noone will ever see in his/her life...:-)
So, we have to find this special someone (who will also need to be
able to work with an arch repository, which needs some timeto
invest...even if Scott, the dpkg main maintainer, made nice docs
available on www.dpkg.org)
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