Subject: [bug#37413] [PATCH 0/9] Channel news distribution mechanism

From: Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2019 17:27:37 +0200

Hello,

"pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)" <[email-masked]> skribis:

> On Tue, Sep 17, 2019 at 03:39:38PM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> "pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)" <[email-masked]> skribis:
>> > You mean it takes too long for the TP coordinator to accept new
>> > versions of PO files?
>> 
>> I mean two things: (1) there will not be PO files (see the format of
>> news entries proposed in this issue),
>
> It is easy to write a Guile script that prints a PO file with the news
> file content inserted as the msgid of a single entry, if xgettext does
> not support this already.  Then there would be two PO files, one for
> the news file and one for the package info, that could be concatenated
> by msgcat to a single file.  Guix could ship with this tooling for
> channel authors and an explanation for how to submit the resulting POT
> file to the Translation Project.
>
> I think a single file is easier for translators to manage than two
> files and typically we’d want news files and packages to be translated
> by the same (group of) translator(s).

As you’ve seen, the format I proposed does not rely on PO files and
gettext at all:

  https://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/37413#5

Are you suggesting that it should rely on PO files?  We can discuss it,
but that would be a significant change with technical challenges
compared to what I propose.  (Also keep in mind that the news mechanism
aims to be available to third-party channels as well.)

Also, why do you mention “the package info”?  There’s no notion of a
package here, so I wonder if there’s a misunderstanding.

>> and (2) I think this is outside
>> the scope of the TP.
>> 
>> Does that clarify?
>> 
>> Ludo’.
>
> I do not see why such translation should be outside the scope of the
> TP?  I can only think of the speed of POT file acceptance and PO file
> translators.

Speed would be a problem (POT files have to be manually accepted by
Benno.)  But also, like I wrote earlier, (1) the TP is geared towards
translating releases of software packages, and (2) and those news
snippets could arrive anytime, not in sync with a “release.”

> I am unsure if setting up Guix’ own translation team would attract
> quicker translators than relying on the TP.

Yeah, having a real translation team is best, but in this case I don’t
see how that could work.

Julien mentioned some time ago that we could run our own Pootle
instance.  Maybe that could be helpful in this case.

Thank you,
Ludo’.