Re: RFS: lunar-applet
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Hello Daobing!
Thank you for contributing to Chinese i18n and Debian!
LI Daobing wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: LI Daobing <lidaobing@gmail.com>
> Date: Aug 1, 2007 11:53 AM
> Subject: RFS: lunar-applet
> To: debian-mentors@lists.debian.org>
>
> Dear mentors,
>
> I am looking for a sponsor for my package "lunar-applet".
I'd love to sponsor your package. I discovered your package by
accident, and I'm enjoying it very much! Finally, an open-source
calendar applet with Chinese lunar calendar! :-)
Meanwhile, please note that even your package is Lintian free, I'd like
to pay attention to the fine details including English. So, please
don't mind me being really picky and requesting you to change a bunch of
stuff before actually uploading your package to the Debian archive. :-)
Also, the problems I point out below (e.g. English wording) are very
common encountered by Chinese developers, so I hope this "critique" will
be helpful for other new Chinese Debian maintainers too. :-)
> * Package name : lunar-applet
> Version : 1.5-1
I see that 1.6 is just out, so please package that and upload again. :-)
> Upstream Author : Wu Xiaotian <yetist@gmail.com>
> * URL : http://ftp.inlsd.org/lunar-applet/
> * License : GPL
> Section : gnome
> It builds these binary packages:
> lunar-applet - A GNOME Timer applet replacement
Issue 1. Revising the packaging description
===========================================
This is *not* a GNOME Timer applet replacement. A "timer"
is "计时器", not "时钟". Indeed, there is already a package called
"timer-applet" which is "a countdown timer applet for the GNOME panel".
(那是个倒计时器，不是日历。)
lunar-applet is actually based on the GNOME Clock applet inside the
Debian gnome-panel package.
/usr/lib/gnome-panel/libclock-applet.so
The fact that it replaces the GNOME Clock Applet is much less important
than the fact that it supports the Chinese lunar calendar! And just so
that the user doesn't guess wildly that it is a "lunar moon-phase
applet" like "glunarclock" the GNOME Lunar Clock moon applet, or that it
might be an Islamic lunar calendar applet, you'll make that very clear
in the single-line synopsis. So, I'd suggest something like the following:
GNOME Clock applet with added Chinese lunar calendar support
As for the extended description:
It provides the chinese traditional(lunar) calendar.
.
Homepage: http://dev.inlsd.org/projects/lunar-applet/wiki
I have the following comments:
1. It is a little bit too short. Don't treat the single-line synopsis
as part of the extended description. It is not. See the
Debian Policy Manual section 3.4 and 3.4.2 for details.
2. The word "Chinese" is a "proper noun" (专有名词), or in this case,
an adjective derived from the proper noun. Besides, we Chinese are
great people! Be proud of ourselves and our heritage! :-)
Always spell this word with a capital "C"! (必须首字大写)
3. Punctuation rule: Always add a space before the opening parenthesis
to separate it from preceding text. (西文开括号和前文之间必须有空格)
Here is my try at it:
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
lunar-applet displays the Chinese lunar calendar and the current date
and time as an applet for the GNOME panel. It is based on the GNOME
Clock Applet and may be used as a drop-in replacement.
.
Homepage: http://dev.inlsd.org/projects/lunar-applet/wiki
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
My English is not that good either, so I borrowed some phrasing from the
glunarclock package description. :-)
Note that I removed the word "traditional" because it seems that most
English speaking people already know what the Chinese lunar calendar is.
You may try a Google search on the three words:
Chinese lunar calendar
and you'll see what I mean. :-)
Issue 2: Evolution support
==========================
I was intrigued by the GNOME Clock Applet replacement idea, so I ran
both GNOME Clock Applet and lunar-applet side-by-side, and noticed that
lunar-applet didn't display the Evolution Task/Todo list.
--enable-eds Enable evolution-data-server dependencies
So, I checked in configure.ac and found that the build process checks
for the presence of libecal1.2-dev and libedataserverui1.2-dev. I'm not
familiar with CDBS, so I checked the CDBS documentation and the rules
from the gnome-panel Debian source package, and found something like the
following in debian/rules:
DEB_CONFIGURE_EXTRA_FLAGS += --disable-scrollkeeper
ifneq ($(DEB_BUILD_GNU_SYSTEM),gnu)
DEB_CONFIGURE_EXTRA_FLAGS += --enable-eds
endif
Issue 3: lunar-applet is derived from GNOME Panel and "lunar"
============================================================
Which is perfectly OK because both "gnome-panel" and "lunar" are GPL
software. You may want to briefly mention this fact though in
debian/copyright.
Also, other cosmetic issues in debian/copyright: instead of this:
Upstream Author: "Wu Xiaotian <yetist@gmail.com>"
Copyright:
2007, "Wu Xiaotian <yetist@gmail.com>"
Remove the extraneous quotation marks, and write "Copyright (C)" in full:
Upstream Author: Wu Xiaotian <yetist@gmail.com>
Copyright:
Copyright (C) 2007 Wu Xiaotian <yetist@gmail.com>
That is more-or-less the convention used in
/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL-{2,3} text. This page
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html has some explanation. You
see, "©" (U+00A9) has legal force, but "(C)" or "(c)", though easy to
type on the computer, has never been given legal force in the court of
law. So, to be safe, in ASCII, we want to be careful and write out the
full form "Copyright (C)".
Hehe, that's enough nitpicking for the day. :-) So, I look forward to
trying out your new upload of 1.6 with the aforementioned issues dealt
with, and I'd be more than happy to upload the package for you. :-)
By the way, are you returning to Beijing any time soon? I am living in
Beijing (so is Anthony Wong), and I'd love to meet you and sign your GPG
key.
Cheers,
Anthony
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