Re: Quel avenir pour la version française des pages de manuel Linux ?
[...]
>> b) Convert the current upstream French pages to po4a, and the Debian
>> teams switches to working on that version of the translation. This
>> would have the effect of discarding the Debian team's work as embodied
>> in the differences between the two translations.
>> Advantages:
>> * Acknowledges Alain's tremendous work, and is a clear demonstration
>> of goodwill by the Debian team.
>> Disadvantages:
>> *Alain must switch to po4a; but perhaps in the end it is worth doing that.
>> * Some of Debian's work is lost -- but maybe the loss is not enormous,
>> because Alain has been doing a lot of work comparing the two
>> translations and changing his. (Of course, you can deduce better than
>> me the magnitude of the current differences between the two
>> translations.)
>
> Actually, the Debian work would not be lost.
>
> At the beginning, we would have two sets of PO files:
> - those converted from Alain's work
> - those in Debian
>
> Then, file by file, both "parties" would need to examine the diff and
> do what's needed to reduce it to zero, if possible.
Would the Debian folk have the time to take on part, maybe even most,
of that work?
> If there's a disagreement, then the Debian package can still keep the
> diff (quilt makes this fairly easy to do).
I'd hope that this wouldn't happen: I can see that it would get
painfuul maintaining too many diffs of this nature.
> There could even be cases
> where a Debian-specific diff could be well worth it even if there is
> *no* disagreement (think about the behaviour of a given utility being
> different in Debian....we have such cases in shadow, for instance)
Yes, that's clear. The Debian translation must mirror the Debian
original pages, which include some diffs from upstream.
[...]
>> * Alain must switch to po4a; but perhaps in the end it is worth doing that.
>>
>> Are there any possibilities other than those I've listed above?
>>
>> And I can't resist asking: which of these options could each side
>> consider as viable?
>
> I think that b) is the most reasonable, indeed. I fully understand
> that, saying so, we're saying "switch to PO" to Alain....:-)
There is one more piece in all of this: even if the teams can combine
their efforts, can they keep up with me. You are all volunteers (I
assume); currently I'm working full time on man-pages. Alain
estimates that each of my weekly releases typically requires two days
of translation work. Obviously, that is unsustainable for him. But
equally obviously, if it is unsustainable for you all when sharing the
work as a team, then there's little point in encouraging Alain to go
through the work of switching to new tools.
Cheers,
Michael
--
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
man-pages online: http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/online_pages.html
Found a bug? http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html
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