Re: [debian-knoppix] Knoppix need more organisation in international development
On Sun, Dec 29, 2002 at 06:59:12PM +0100, Florent BERANGER wrote:
> > > With a team, we're planning a French version of ISO.
> > > What will be this status : official Knoppix iso, unofficial, available on
> > > Knoppix mirrors or no ?
> >
> > Who should decide on what is a "official" or "unofficial" version?
>
> You (Klaus) with the project leader of each language iso.
Thanks for your faith in me, but please understand that the more time I
have to spend in "non-programming" stuff like organization and more
tests, the fewer time I can spend in real development (which is not only
Knoppix). Therefore, I would like to keep my efforts on this as low as
possible. I would just trust you to be as careful as possible when
building a localized version, and say it's "official" then. And blame
you, if it doesn't work as expected. ;-)
> > I can put a french version on the two machines
> > that most mirrors are polling from, but it is still their decision
> > whether or not they will mirror it or not.
> It's what I want but not just for French language, for all.
> What I want is to organise languages isos (common procedure, status).
Wonderful. I hope you realize that this is a LOT of work you put
on yourself, yes? The distribution and communication can get very
time-consuming ("Which mirrors get which localized version and when?",
"Who is the contact person for each localized version?", "Who to contact
for improvements/bugreports for language-specific versions, and diffs
with the base english/german version?"). And we have no technical
procedure yet on how to "rebuild" or "build from scratch" a localized
version. I'm not very optimistic concerning a single "knoppify" script
that generates a Knoppix CD from a stock Debian distribution, but you
may want to get in contact with Oliver Zendel about this, who has worked
on an XML-based Knoppix-customiser for a while. Maybe the easiest way is
just decompressing an english Knoppix, exchanging packages and /etc/skel
files and recompressing. Same for a matching boot floppy.
> > > I think projects leaders(and dev if they want) for each language must
> > > meet about the best way to organize that and decide about a common
> > > procedure and realise official Knoppix isos.
> >
> > Again, who should decide which image is "official" and which is not?
>
> same answer (you and the project leader) ;)
I don't think I would be good as a project leader for this, honestly,
because I prefer to work on the project parts that _I_ think are most
important, which is not necessarily the opinion or need of the majority
of potential Knoppix users or developers.
> > Who would do a quality assurance and version management?
> They'll be all the same version (other language than en & de will be realised
> 1 or 2 days later but have the same version).
Some changes will have side-effects and are potential bug introducers,
like localized boot scripts, kernels and file systems. Some packages
(like etcskel-knoppix) will have to be split into localizable packages.
> Quality : it's just about locale files and there will the procedure (which
> contain tests) to respect.
At least for OpenOffice and Mozilla, it is a little harder than you may
think, because you also need to restructure and rewrite some
configuration files or filesystem trees. More below.
> > If you just exchange some locale files or OpenOffice, I for my part
> > would assume that this CD is a KNOPPIX derivate. If you change the boot
> > procedure significantly, exchange a lot of packages so that the whole thing
> > differs a lot from the versions that I used to make, you should probably
> > not call it "KNOPPIX" anymore but give it an own name of your choice and
> > say it is "based on" or "derived from" KNOPPIX technology. Does this
> > make sense?
>
> Yes, the goal is just change locales files (OpenOffice, Mozilla if it's
> possible, KDE,...).
Most KDE applications have their messages catalogs in the kde-i18n-*
packages. Some applications come with their own catalogs, which will all
be installed, no matter if you want those languages or not. You would
have to rebuild those packages to include only the needed languages, or
delete files manually, which could make it harder to update or maintain
the software. But all in all, KDE is the least critical factor in
localization. More below.
> And about the German version of Knopppix, a German version of OpenOffice
> exists, no ?
OpenOffice has a kind of weird locales support. Basically, you have to
rebuild OpenOffice for each language. But in fact, most
language-dependent files are separable. The messages/menus are MOSTLY in
the "resource" directory in the openoffice tree, BUT there are virtual
links in the openoffice global configuration as well. You can switch
languages if you just change a link to the specific resource directory,
which is what I did for english and german (the help files have to be
switched, too). But each additional language costs about 36MB this way.
Mozilla needs a change in its prefs.js file and a chrome-something
file for a specific language translation. This has to be done during
startup somewhere (currently in 45xsession).
The current CD edition has german and english support for Mozilla as
well as openoffice.
> > > And if for a language an iso exist and is official, i18n files can be
> > > removed in other isos, no ? This could keep space on CD (for KDE3.1 for
> > > exemple).
> >
> > You could do that, but would lose the capability to specify the desired
> > language at the boot prompt if removing all but one language.
> Users can choose the iso with the maximum in their language (+ KDE in English)
> and have more software, it's really better, no ?
Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the quality of the translations, and if the
CD will be used in a limited environment, or in a school where more
languages are used in parallel.
> > Well, if a question is specific for the german edition, and probably not
> > of much interest for other readers, I see no reason why it should not be
> > answered in german as well, no?
> For that, ok but it's not always the case, many posts about general things are
> writen in German :(
This may be the case if users try to describe a problem in detail, and
lack of sufficient english skills to explain it in english. I would not
want to enforce english in this case.
> > I'm trying to keep my initial posts in english though, and think that others
> > are doing that as well, if they can speak english well enough to explain
> > their problem or solution.
> Your changelogs, for exemple, are in German.
Personal lazyness. ;-)
Do you thin they should be in english only? I don't want to maintain
several changelogs in different languages.
> > Again, how would we solve the problem of keeping the CVS in sync with
> > development machines that are NOT connected to the internet?
>
> Perhaps you can copy files on a flashdrive/pendrive or floppy disk ?
I usually burn the current state of the sources on CD, take it home, and
put it on my website via a secure channel from there. This is somewhat
time-consuming, though. But the safest way, because, as said before, I
don't want to have the Knoppix build machines connected to the internet
for security reasons. The most secure firewall is sometimes a physical
disconnection.
Regards
-Klaus
--
Klaus Knopper Technical Solutions & Finances
knopper@linuxtag.org http://www.linuxtag.org/
Phone +49-(0)631-3109371 Fax +49-(0)631-3109372
LinuxTag 2003 - Europes largest Linux Expo Where .com meets .org
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