[Localization] [9.1 Proposal] i18n and l10n: 9.1 and beyond

[Sayamindu Dasgupta]

On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 2:07 AM, C. Scott Ananian <cscott at cscott.net> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 4:29 PM, Sayamindu Dasgupta <sayamindu at gmail.com> wrote:
>> c) Language packs: The current system of language packs is not very
>> reliable (it overwrites the original translations in the system,
>> installations cannot be easily undone, no versioning, etc). I want to
>> switch to a RPM based language pack system for 9.1, which will be
>> easier to deploy (especially if the customization key mechanism gets
>> support for RPM). This will require support for multiple locale
>> directories, and I'll talk about that as well  (Ubuntu uses a similar
>> approach - I plan to reuse their patches if possible).
>
> We've talked about this before on sugar@ I think, and we'll no doubt
> talk more at the XOcamp, but I prefer reusing as much of the 'activity
> bundle' mechanisms as possible, so that language packs can be
> installed/removed/upgraded "just like" activity and content bundles.
> Mostly this means supporting language packs which are installed in
> /home, not just ones installed in /, but I'd like to think about
> unifying the various "bundles" into a consistent format.


Sounds like a valid plan - I see no major issues. My only concern is
that the current language pack must go as soon as possible (which
means 9.1 :-). The current packs make me nervous, and they add another
step in cases of mass deployments, which is not good.

Cheers,
Sayamindu


-- 
Sayamindu Dasgupta
[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings]