Re: other/2857: i18n, translations does not work

[Dennis Bjorklund <db at zigo dot dhs dot org>]

On Thu, 24 May 2001, Joseph S. Myers wrote:

> > Danish and Japanese translations (for a gcc.pot from 2000-06-07, but
> > still...) sitting there?
>
>  ... and the Swedish translation should be going via the GNU translation
> project (see http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/contrib/po/HTML/maintainers.html
> for how maintainers should interact with translators).

I don't think that is a requirement from fsf, but if that's how you people
want it. I talked with Philipp and last year, and then it was said that as
long as the paperwork is okay it doesn't matter.

My guess is also that these old translations not only out of date but
missing stuff. My sv.po is 252k and there is lots of strings not
translated. The danish is just 166k so probably there is a lot of string
missing from that pot.

> the release script), so that there is a suitable distribution, containing
> an up to date .pot file, for the translators to use?

There needs to be several po files since gcc is developed in different
parts. The gcc 3.0.x might need to be updated even after 3.1 comes out and
so on. I don't know how (or even if) the fsf system handles that.

The fsf system works as it do since they think it's too hard for
translators to handle cvs and maybe to much to download. But I think
especially for gcc that should not be a problem but even for other
translations you really need to compile and run the program anyway to see
that it works. Natural language are too ambigous to just translate in the
dark and hope it works in a context. So i think you should download and
try out your translation.

For example gnome keeps all the .po files in cvs (and not the .pot) and
let the translators send patches, or if they have write access to update
the files themself. And if someone needs help there is a mailinglist for
that. I think that is even simpler then the fsf system. One difference is
that fsf demands that you sign one of thier disclaimers and send in
first (i've done that).

I for one would like to keep the translation synced with the development
tree once it is complete. Even if that means I'll translate string that
will change again before the release. It's easier to keep the translation
up to date in that way. I don't see any use of having the .pot in the cvs
at all.

-- 
/Dennis