Re: non-utf8 po files breaking the build

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

fre 2002-12-06 klockan 01.57 skrev Keld Jørn Simonsen:
> > 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.

I don't remember anyone but you saying no. And your questions on why
have been answered may times.


> > 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.

*When* did he say that? You're constantly trying to bring up what people
said several years ago, which hardly is relevant to the current
situation. I also said one or two years ago that I'd rather prefer a
solution if possible where the translator could chose to store the po
files in cvs in any character set he likes, but that was then. Since
then it has shown to be a much more difficult task to accomplish that
with the current GNOME 2 i18n infrastructure and tools, and we would
somehow have to bring a lot of character set conversions and
verifications at every point, and most people agree it's not worth it,
expecially since there are good UTF-8 tools and editors and working
entirely in UTF-8 is quite painless.
And more important, those who refuse to accept UTF-8 haven't done a
thing to improve the situation, so that it would be possible not to use
UTF-8.


> I had a proposal to do this, which was not discssed at all.

You've had many exciting proposals, none of which has materialized. The
problem isn't a lack of proposals; the problem is lack of actual fixing.


> > > > 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.

Why? The GTP:s work surely hasn't halted by us requiring po files to be
committed to CVS as UTF-8. On the contrary, we have as many active
translation teams as never before, and more of them than ever have
supported status (http://www.gnome.org/i18n/).


> > 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?

You. GTP coordinator I don't know about, that was before I started
working with GNOME translations, but the GTP contact persons were being
discussed and chosen on this very list as late as in October
(http://lists.gnome.org/archives/gnome-i18n/2002-October/msg00035.html).
I certainly didn't hear you object.


> > > 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.

We are certainly giving you a chance. In fact, people have several times
responded to your suggested proposals for the last year with saying that
they were interesting, but until they were implemented we would still
need to require translations to be in UTF-8. So I don't see that people
aren't giving you a chance, on the contrary. You've had the chance to
prove your ideas since the days UTF-8 was first being discussed, and you
still have the chance.


> > 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.

It has been decided. Please refrain from claiming the opposite, or you
will be rightfully ignored by even more people.


Christian