Re: Man pages and UTF-8
On Sun, Aug 12, 2007 at 08:09:06PM +1000, Ben Finney wrote:
> Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org> writes:
>
> > On Fri, Aug 10, 2007 at 01:23:02PM +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:
> > > All data files should be in UTF-8 [...] you cannot inflict data
> > > loss on others. If man-db does this, it needs to be beaten with a
> > > large cluestick.
> >
> > I think the maintainer of man-db is well aware and has more than
> > enough "clue". (The statement like above without checking the fact
> > is nothing but arrogance and should be avoided to be a good debian
> > volunteer.)
>
> I assume English is not your native language so I'll point out a
> nuance that was clear to me when I read Adam's message:
Yep.
> There's an important difference between "beat the program with a large
> cluestick" and "beat the person with a large cluestick". Adam's
> assertion was only that the former was necessary.
Technically true.
> If the person with the necessary clue is the package maintainer, they
> are more than welcome to issue the beating upon the software. This
> isn't an arrogant or insulting statement, because it's the software
> that is being declared clueless, not the person.
But that still takes volunteer time and efforts for small benefit.
Even if it was UTF-8 encoded, if you do not have proper font installed,
you get "TOFU"(white box) on your screen. Please note man-db does
$ LC_ALL=ja_JP.UTF-8 man man
and displays correct text in English UTF-8 locale console if one has
Japanese font installed.
(The source data is still in eucJP).
I was not comfortable since the poster did not even check the fact first
and bashed current quality of the software. The quality of software is
closely related to and inseparable from its upstream and its maintainer,
i.e., Colin in my eyes.
Osamu
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