Re: Manual page translations

[Yavor Doganov <yavor doganov org>]

Данило Шеган wrote:
> 
> On Wednesday at 15:17, Yavor Doganov wrote:
> > If someone submits vi translation of the bash manpage, for instance,
> > and it is included in the next bash release, a Vietnamese user will
> > see garbled text when he/she types `man bash' to view it (unless, of
> > course, he/she goes through the hassle of patching groff).
> 
> And a user (hopefuly) complains to his distributor, distributor
> acknowledges the issue, and issues a fix: patched groff, perhaps with
> all manpages converted to UTF-8 (so nothing breaks for anybody
> else).

I'd wish it was so, but it's not going to happen, at least not in
Debian (the GNU distribution with the most complete set of manpages
and locales).  The patch that Clytie points to is actually a temporary
workararound, not the "right thing" to do even according to upstream.

AFAIK there is already UTF-8 support in CVS, but I don't know when
it'll be released (as most GNU packages -- when it is ready).  Also,
as far as I'm aware, it won't be necessary to convert all existing
manpages to UTF-8, as there is a preprocessor included.

Of course, Yelp uses a completely different mechanism so it is a good
idea to implement it.  My objection, if at all can be called so, is
that sending *translated in UTF-8* manpages upstream will make many
users nervous.  They'll have to either open them in Yelp (2.16?) or
apply the dirty hack that their distros are not going to do.

-- 
"Every non-free program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." --RMS