Re: Plans for dropping levels 3 to 5 of "Debian Installer translations"

[Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>]

Christian Perrier wrote:
> Quoting Frans Pop (elendil@planet.nl):
>> Christian Perrier wrote:
>> > As a consequence, I have the intent to soon reduce the number of
>> > levels listed as "Debian Installer translation levels" to only 2.
>> 
>> Any reason why this was not CCed to the d-boot list?
> 
> Mostly because I feel that none of the translations listed in these
> level does really have to do with D-I itself.

IMO any discussion that relates to D-I should at least be CCed there, even 
if "just for your information". As this infrastructure was developed for 
D-I and is part of the D-I codebase, it should IMO definitely be CCed 
there. At the very least it would make people aware of the background of 
changes when they get committed.
 
>> Please specify exactly which packages would move from which current
>> level to which other level, or will get dropped.
>> Without that info it is basically impossible to comment on the plan.
> 
> Sure. I wanted to avoid a too long message with a detailed rationale
> for each package...but we can go into this now.

Thanks. OK, so for the most part this is essentially a (long overdue?) 
cleanup, in a number of cases related to the dropping of base-config.

In general I feel that in principle any package containing strings that 
can be displayed during a normal installation should remain included in 
the stats. Unless it is totally obvious that the dialog in question as a 
whole belongs to a specific package and does not belong to D-I.

> exim4:
>       It has one high priority question during installs of the Mail
>       Server task. So, that question might pop up sometimes but I'm
>       unsure it warrants such a special treatment

Agreed (falls under the exception I formulated above).
 
> win32-loader:
>       The trickiest. It is developed inside D-I SVN and is used on
>       Debian CD and DVDs IIRC. So, one can see it as "part of D-I"
>       in some way. However, translating it is not enough and
>       activating a language there also requires another software
>       (NSIS) to be translated in that language plus Windows
>       supporting the said language.
>       Could *maybe* be moved to level 2...or kept in a small level 3

As this is included in D-I SVN *and* is included on CD images it should 
IMHO definitely be kept. As strings are not displayed as part of an 
installation itself it would also be better not to have it in level 2, so 
a level 3 seems indicated.

> debconf:
>       We have the debconf programs translations. Clearly unused in D-I
> 
>       We also have the debconf screens used when doing
>       "dpkg-reconfigure debconf" and also debconf-apt-progress/*
>       templates strings ("Installing packages"....). These may appear
>       during D-I...so that may motivate moving this in the small
>       level 3 I'm talking about earlier
> dpkg:
>       IIRC, used to have very rare strings pop up during packages
>       installs in 2nd stage. No longer needed and huge translation.
>       So, this is an important program, sure...but nothing to do with
>       D-I.
> apt:
>       Is still maybe providing a few strings that pop up during
>       installs in progress bars. TO be checked but I'm really unsure
>       it warrants having that huge translation labeled as "part of
>       D-I"
 
I also forget where the package installation strings come from. But IMO 
these definitely fall under the main rule I formulated: if we use strings 
from either package, we should include it in the stats.

One option could be to work with the package maintainers and split the 
huge PO files of these packages into smaller logic units and include only 
those units relevant for D-I.

> - console-data: soon obsoleted by the move to console-setup, which
>   is very likely to happen. So we'll need to mov eit out of level 2

I still have some serious doubts about this whole change. I would not drop 
console-data too soon.
 
> - xkeyboard-config: its strings are used by console-setup. However,
>   that localization is not maintained inside Debian and will not be.
>   So, here, our only possibility is to list it in one of our
>   levels and then point translators to the place where translation
>   happens for it (the TP).

Yes, should definitely be added once things settle down.