Re: non-utf8 po files breaking the build

[Keld Jørn Simonsen <keld dkuug dk>]

On Tue, Dec 03, 2002 at 01:43:26AM +0100, Christian Rose wrote:
> tis 2002-12-03 klockan 00.42 skrev Keld Jørn Simonsen:
> > > > > > I really dont understand your rhetorics here. We have decided not to
> > > > > > force UTF-8 on our translators a number of times, and then you again and
> > > > > > again claim the opposite. Please accept that we live in a world that
> > > > > > has multiple charsets, and please do not make it harder for translators
> > > > > > to contribute to Gnome.
> > > > > 
> > > > > We are not forcing UTF-8 on anyone. The only thing that has been decided
> > > > > is that all po files should be in UTF-8 format *in* *CVS* so that we
> > > > > have less problems for the people trying to make tarballs once a week
> > > > > and also for the people who are trying to keep the tree buildable at all
> > > > > times.
> > > > 
> > > > Well, we have decided to keep the po files in the CVS in all charsets, two times.
> > > > We have never decided to only have it in UTF-8.
> > > 
> > > Please re-read this very thread then. I thought we have already made it
> > > pretty clear that we have decided on keeping all GNOME 2.x translations
> > > in UTF-8 in CVS. How more official do you want the decision?
> > 
> > I reread some messages. I actually thought that we decided some 4 months
> > ago to keep the multi-charset way of doing things.
> 
> That may have been the case four months ago, although I'm not convinced
> we actually decided to do something at that time, but rather leave the
> issue where it was and decide something later. In any case, it doesn't
> matter, as things are decided now. More on that below.
> 
> 
> > But I could not
> > really find any definitive statements. I remember the recent discussion,
> > but then only you and Yanko being all for it, and Kjartan proposing
> > that we make some way to let translators deliver .po-files in cvs
> > in the charset of their choice. 
> 
> Part of the purpose of the latest messages in the most recent thread was
> to make it explicitly clear that we have decided to keep GNOME 2 po
> files in UTF-8 in cvs, so that we wouldn't need to have this discussion
> over and over, and some people always claiming things aren't decided. It
> seems we failed to make this clear to everyone.
> 
> You should have a look at
> http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-i18n/2002-November/msg00201.html : 
> "The only thing that has been decided
> is that all po files should be in UTF-8 format *in* *CVS* so that we
> have less problems for the people trying to make tarballs once a week
> and also for the people who are trying to keep the tree buildable at all
> times."
> 
> If you read Kjartan's and my responses and many else's, it should come
> as no surprise that there is a large consensus here.

I dont see a huge consensus. You and Yanko, yes, but then some people
saying yes and no and but... And my questions on why were not answered.

> It should also become clear that things are actually decided. I don't
> like having to point this out, but Kjartan is the GTP coordinator and
> has been so for quite some time. Kjartan and me are GTP contact persons.

Kjartan said we should try to make it so that the translators were not
affected. I had a proposal to do this, which was not discssed at all.

> > > Please remember that things like this don't get decided by popular vote,
> > > and the decisions certainly don't get invalidated by one persons
> > > reluctant protests on having to commit things in UTF-8, no matter how
> > > loud the complaints/rants may be.
> > 
> > Oh well, but just having two loud ranting persons advocating UTF-8
> > should not make a decision either:-)
> 
> Sometimes it depends on who those people are (also, there wasn't only
> two people advocating UTF-8). We certainly don't want a situation where
> things are decided by only a copuple of people, but we don't want a
> situation where nothing gets decided and we can't move forward either.

It is fine that the project moves forward, but to me UTF-8 only
is not moving forward, but shooting ourselves in the foot.

> That's why the projects have coordinators, and lately also contact
> persons. That's why decisions can be made like for example in the GDP,
> where they decided to move from SGML for all GNOME documentation to
> Docbook XML. It may have been an impopular decision for some, but there
> was a consensus that this was the right direction and it was eventually
> decided.
> That's why there are coordinators -- to represent the individual GNOME
> subprojects. That means that there has to be some decisions in order to
> represent the subproject as a whole, and to work with the same goals.

Well, who chose them?

> > I proposed a way that could accomodate everybody, I think,
> > namely to extract and convert to utf-8 when you need the po-files,
> > eg for statistics. I ahve not seen any comments on that.
> 
> You come with paper solutions; "maybe it can be done this way", "maybe
> files can be automatically recoded", etc. I haven't seen any concrete
> bug fix yet. Remember that code speaks more than words, and we haven't
> seen any code yet from you to fix the current GNOME 2 i18n
> infrastructure to work with multiple encodings.

Well, I could try to if you think it could solve the problem, 
but you do not give me the chance at all.

> In any case, the use of UTF-8 for GNOME 2 po files in CVS has been
> decided. Please refrain from more mails claiming the opposite.

I don't see it has been decided. There are proposals on the table
that could make such a solution less desirable.

Kind regards
keld