Bug#917995: debian-policy: drop section 1.6 Translations

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Sean Whitton writes ("Bug#917995: debian-policy: drop section 1.6 Translations"):
> I'm still inclined to prioritise unblocking people, by giving them a way
> of resolving disputes between versions of the document without asking on
> d-policy, but let's see.

It is the English text of policy that is reviewed and discussed and
approved here.  That is, the "untranslated" policy.  It is quite wrong
to say that the English text is not special.  If it is desired to
provide normative text in other language(s), that text should be
discussed and approved in the same way as the English text.

Even so, that leaves open the possibility for multiple normative texts
which disagree.  (This has occurred frequently in international
treaties with multiple normative texts and is a source of trouble.)

Another approach to nominal linguistic agnosticism would be to declare
that the untranslated policy is not necessarily all in English.  It
might be a mixture of languages.

So we could have a policy subsection in Japanese perhaps, if expertise
in a particular area is mostly held by speakers of Japanese.  There
would presumably have to be (non-normative) English translation.

Ian.

-- 
Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>   These opinions are my own.

If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is
a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.