Re: Exclusion, was: Clarification about krooger's platform
On Fri, Mar 04, 2005 at 12:48:50AM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> wrote:
> > There were multiple announcemnts and as much time as possible before
> > closing the set of supported languages for sarge d-i.
>
> Where were these announcements? Sorry, I had asked
> previously and was told there has been no official
> announcement, which I had no reason to doubt.
>
> Today, it is not obviously mentioned on pages like
> http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ or
> http://people.debian.org/~seppy/d-i/translation-status.html -
> apologies if I'm just looking in the wrong places (or just dim),
> but those seem like the first places new translators would find.
>
> It's not d-i developers' responsibility to ask everyone, but it
> was frustrating there seemed no way to find out besides dumb luck.
>
> > [...] The only language that has been dropped that was available in
> > the boot floppies is Esperanto. I suspect that is not a significant
> > exclusion; wikipedia puts the number of native speakers of Esperanto as
> > a first language at "200 to 2000".
>
> That estimate is nearly ten years old. Of course, it is more
> common as a *second* language, which was the original plan
> for it. It's estimated there were at least 2 million users at
> the turn of this century and I think there are above-average
> proportions of liberals and humanists, who would be attracted
> by debian's social contract, but both of those are pretty
> unmeasurable numbers. For much of the 20th century, Esperanto
> use was persecuted by extreme and parochial interests, which
> I think makes underestimation probable.
>
> The last installer was translated, its translator is still around
> and there's still an active language list, but it seems no-one
> asked there. I'm sorry you don't think the language significant
> enough to worry!
Nope, it doesn't work that way. The translators come to the d-i and
translation team and ask what they can do to help get it translated.
So, it is not that people think esperanto is not significant enough, but
rather than nobody interested in esperanto cared enough early enough in the
process to get it supported. I guess it is too late for rc3 or maybe even the
sarge release now, but if you contribute or organize something it may still
happen, at least for a point release.
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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