[Localization] [sugar] [Proposal] .xot bundles, for translations

[Martin Langhoff]

On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 6:58 PM, Sayamindu Dasgupta <sayamindu at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have been thinking of having a separate place in the filesystem for
> _new_ translations, and using RPM to manage the installation and
> upgradation of the new translations.

What is the downside of RPMs? If users edit the localisation locally,
that is _fine_ and we can provide a mechanism to make an rpm easily
out of it.

rpm has limited support for "user installable" packages that are meant
to be installed in your homedir. Maybe it can serve this purpose, even
within its limitations?

If that doesn't work properly, maybe we install the rpm as root, but
invoking rpm with --noscripts, and perhaps auditing the pkg manifest
to check for anything with suid flags, etc. We could even build a dumb
rpm unpacker/installer but I doubt it is needed.

A new bundle format makes us more incompatible with the world.
Example:  someone builds a localisation for us, it won't work for
Fedora, and viceversa.

Building bespoke sofware has a huge long term cost so when we do it,
we better get a ton of value, something radically better and hopefully
with immediate payoff.

Installing a bunch of files in /home is not leading edge enough to
justify this, IMHO.

cheers,


martin langhoff
-- 
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