Re: New external dependecy request (ICU)

[Kenneth Rohde Christiansen <kenneth gnu org>]

Hi

libICU used Common XML Locale Repository as far as I can tell, and
Common XML Locale Repository is supported by Sun (for OpenOffice for
instance), IBM (for libICU for C and Java), by Red Hat. The Mono project
is also using libicu so maybe you could say that Novell is supporting it
indirectly? Anyway, it seems like at least the companies behind GNOME
support libicu and its use.

Search in the libicu database here

http://oss.software.ibm.com/cgi-bin/icu/lx

Unfortunately libicu doesnt support all the languages that we support.
We might help our languages a lot by making sure that the future
programs can access locale info for our languages. This is important if
we are going to use this in GNOME at least

A few examples of unsupported languages: (li is somewhat supported with
GNOME)

http://oss.software.ibm.com/cgi-bin/icu/lx/en/?_=nds_DE
http://oss.software.ibm.com/cgi-bin/icu/lx/en/?_=fy_NL
http://oss.software.ibm.com/cgi-bin/icu/lx/en/?_=li_NL

I have tried gathering some more info about the project.

Collection procedure: - a MUST read if you want to contribute
http://www.openi18n.org/subgroups/lade/locale/process.htm

Specification: - the exact format to create a locale. Maybe it is
enought to supply info and not exactly create the  locale. It might also
be possible to inheriage info from another locale.  
http://oss.software.ibm.com/cvs/icu/~checkout~/locale/ldml-spec.html

More info:
http://oss.software.ibm.com/cvs/icu/locale/icu/main/
http://www.openi18n.org/subgroups/lade/locale/index.htm

Filing bugs:
http://oss.software.ibm.com/cvs/icu/~checkout~/locale/
filing_bug_reports.html

Example:
http://oss.software.ibm.com/cvs/icu/~checkout~/locale/diff/main/da_DK.
html

http://oss.software.ibm.com/cvs/icu/locale/icu/main/de.xml?
rev=1.10&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup

Cheers, Kenneth

On Mon, 2004-01-05 at 23:44 +0100, Carlos Perelló Marín wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I want to add a new GNOME dependency on icu (
> http://oss.software.ibm.com/icu/).
> 
> As GNOME translators know, we have lots of modules translating the same
> strings (language names, country names, timezone names, date/time
> formats, etc...).
> 
> We need a way to share those translations between all our modules so we
> reuse work, just like libraries do.
> 
> I was looking at the Debian's iso-codes (
> http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/i/iso-codes/) package to get this
> information shared because the author has the same objective, but then I
> found icu.
> 
> Icu has the needed database already prepared to work and translated into
> lots of languages (we should add more but it's easier than start from
> the ground).
> 
> What will we won with ICU?
> 
> Just look at: http://oss.software.ibm.com/cgi-bin/icu/lx/en/?_=es_ES and
> you will see all the information we can get without the need of a
> translator to give us that information.
> 
> Of course, I'm not talking about use all icu functionality because it
> has some functionality already available with libc but the translations
> database is the best thing we can get, also, it's used by other projects
> so there are more people maintaining it.
> 
> If you want an example that use this library, just look at my
> localization capplet (http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=130601).
> 
> If the library is accepted, I will start sending patches against GNOME
> modules to use it so we reduce the duplicated strings.
> 
> What do you think?.
> 
> Cheers.
> -- 
> Carlos Perell Marn
> Debian GNU/Linux Sid (PowerPC)
> Linux Registered User #121232
> mailto:carlos@pemas.net || mailto:carlos@gnome.org
> http://carlos.pemas.net
> Valencia - Spain
--