Re: totem string freeze breakages

[Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net>]

On Tue, 2005-10-25 at 08:36 +0200, Danilo Šegan wrote:
> Yesterday at 22:56, Christian Rose wrote:
> 
> >> The strings addition were to add filters to Totem:
> >> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=318350
> >> and
> >> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=170226
> >>
> >> The string change (although it hasn't been mentioned directly in a bug)
> >> means that user now know that the location can't be played, rather than
> >> the type of file (this only affects the xine-lib backend which isn't in
> >> the Desktop release, per se).
> >
> > It's five messages that are affected if I'm correct. This is very late

Could you list them? I can only think of 3, but it might be due to me
moving a function...

Can I move a function to another file without breaking the translations?
Can I remove the use of a particular string and replace it with an
already translated string without using breaking translations?

> > in the process, but then again, it's fairly simple messages, and it
> > seems that they actually fix bugs.
> > The actual string changes are fine with me, although obviously I am in
> > no way happy about how they happened.
> >
> > Danilo might be of another opinion, though.
> 
> Yeah, I do.  These are not bug-fixes in its own sense[1], but more like
> "enhancements".  I understand that Bastien wants to get enhancements
> out to the masses as soon as possible, but that's why we have 6-month
> release cycle!

For some of them, for a certain value of enhancement. The xine-lib
message was necessary to avoid some pretty bad bug reports. Especially
as the Mozilla plugin is getting used more.

> However, you do need only single GTP spokesperson approval, so
> Christian's might be enough (which doesn't change the fact that I'd
> still consider it inappropriate string freeze breakage).  What's else,
> if this truly affects only xine-lib backend, it's even more
> inappropriate: we are asking all maintainers not to do any string
> changes even if they are not going to be seen, because it makes our
> work harder (there is no mechanism for translators to track which
> messages will or will not be seen, so we have to translate them all:
> if you next add another message which will be seen by everybody in the
> UI, we wouldn't be able to tell it apart from these).  And don't
> forget this might affect docs (and their translations) as well!
> 
> To conclude, it's not only about what makes sense from your POV, but
> also what makes sense from translators' POV (which is not simply "we
> don't want to translate anymore", but includes other things like "our
> tools have their limitations", etc.): the idea of freezes is that we
> don't have to explain our reasons over and over again (which we still,
> unfortunately, end up doing almost every time :(), because GTP has 
> explained it once, and the Gnome community at large recognised our
> needs.  

I wasn't asking for the reason why. I didn't even know that there was a
string freeze *after* the .0 releases. And I'm pretty sure I broke it in
the past for some other modules, and didn't get told anything.

> If you still feel comfortable making work harder for 60+ of Gnome's
> regular contributors, it's your choice to make: we can't force you to
> do anything.

Don't give me that crap Danilo. I just don't like being lynched in
public and people telling me what they think was in my mind at the time.
I don't know so many people who can read my mind, at least not when it
comes to software.

I'll wait for Christian to send me the list of changes I made, and
revert those that are appropriate, depending on the answer to my
questions above.

Cheers

---
Bastien Nocera <hadess hadess net> 
Lucas has made a vacuous, boring, pretentious, retroactively destructive
sequel. He has lost the plot. The man is a fool. -- Simon Pegg (on the
Phantom Menace)