Re: New member of the Dutch team

[François Pinard <pinard at iro dot umontreal dot ca>]

Ian Lance Taylor <ian@zembu.com> writes:

> The binutils include an installed library, libbfd, and installed programs.
> libbfd includes strings, and therefore includes a POT file.  The programs
> include other strings, and therefore also include POT files.  Both the
> binutils and gdb use libbfd, and they are distributed separately.  I don't
> see a straightforward way to combine everything into a single POT file.

A "textual domain" is just a name encompassing a particular POT file and
all national PO files which have been made out of that initial POT file.
The textual domain is used a key to recover the proper PO file at run time.
For example, if the textual domain is `binutils' (that would be proper),
using the default --prefix, the French translations should be held within:

  /usr/local/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/binutils.mo

So far (Gnome excepted, still in the future), we install one PO file
per language per distribution, that usually means there is one POT file
per distribution, from which PO files are derived.  If for some strange
technical reason a POT file may not be constructed in one shot, we have
combining tools, so this is not really a problem.  Even `xgettext' can
combine POT files, if I remember well.  In my opinion, all programs from
`binutils', as well as any library which is specific to `binutils', could
well share a single textual domain.  This is what we do in other `*utils',
which often have dozens of programs.

However, if `libbfd' is to be part of many distributions, we might have to
seek a compromise between the usual simplicity of a single POT file, and the
fact it would not be reasonable asking translators to re-translate `libbfd'
separately, once per distribution including it.  We do not have a solid,
all-satisfying solution for this problem yet, and since this is going to
happen often, I/we have to think this carefully, so all involved parties
are reasonably satisfied, while avoiding a proliferation of approaches.
Note that diversity is not bad in itself, but it would make the Translation
Project much more difficult to manage, document and use.

Hopefully, since `binutils' is not fully ready for translation yet, this
gives us some time to breath and think.  I will try to work on this in a few
weeks, and then get back to you.  Of course, good ideas are always welcome!

-- 
François Pinard   http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard