Bug#197469: comment on bug report

[Gerfried Fuchs <rhonda@deb.at>]

        Hi!

* Thorsten Alteholz <debian@alteholz.de> [2009-02-08 18:38:14 CET]:
> the author of gcal decided (according to general practice) to look for 
> the following environment variables:
>  $LANGUAGE
>  $LC_ALL
>  $LC_MESSAGES
>  $LANG
> If one of those is defined, the value is further examined.

 That's fine for printing messages. This bug though isn't about printing
messages.

> There are only two options: the value starts with "en_" or something
> different. The first case means some kind of American style calendar
> where the days of  the week are written in a top row and the week
> starts with Sunday.

 It isn't even about how the days are written, on the left or on the
top.

> According to ISO/IEC TR 14652 usage of $LC_TIME is problematic and
> might result in unintended behaviour. Further it is correct to use
> $LC_MESSAGE to decide upon the language of the output. Please keep in
> mind that gcal does not only output a calendar but also holidays and
> events.

 Again, it's not about the language of the output. It's about deciding
on which day the week starts for the locale. Given that LC_TIME is
described as:

    LC_TIME
        changes the behavior of the strftime(3) function to display
        the current time in a  locally acceptable form; for example,
        most of Europe uses a 24-hour clock versus the 12-hour clock
        used in the United States.

 ... and that strftime only has:

 %u     The day of the week as a decimal, range 1 to 7, Monday being 1.
        See also %w.  (SU)

 %w     The day of the week as a decimal, range 0 to 6, Sunday being 0.
        See also %u.

 from that I guess it's not really obvious to claim that LC_TIME is
technically relevant here. Semantically it definitely is and I would
absolutely expect programs to calculate the start of the week with
querying LC_TIME and *not* LC_MESSAGES because it's not about the
written part, not about the localization of the text.

> So from my point of view the behaviour of gcal corresponds with the  
> appropriate standards and your bug is rather a feature. Even the 
> criticized rotation is done on purpose.

 I still think you misread what this bug is about. :)

 So long!
Rhonda