----- Original Message ----- From: "Christian Couder" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2001 4:01 PM Subject: Re: Proposal for a mailing list to improve Debian translation
> > And debian-i18n is low traffic. So why not just use it? > There is a difference between internationalization (i18n) and > translation (l10n). > Internationalization is supposed to make it possible to translate things > (like an app using gettext or a web site using content negotiation). > Translation is making some translation available for the things that > have been internationalized. Sometimes, it is really not that simple when you start playing with MBCS, right to left writing (Arabic), or even something like top to bottom then right to left MBCS (a traditional writing style in some Asian coutries.) (Mostly for those that Internationalization (I18N), in its simplified meaning, is a combination of methods to design and implement an application or system to theoretically support any possible language. An i18n application must be able to support all the languages supported by the operating system and/or libraries, even if it may operate awkwardly. Localization (L10N), is a process to make an application or system to support a locale (both language and location) that is not currently supported. In supporting the locale, the application or system will usually be changed to not only support the language, but to also to support the local "customs". These customs may be simple as just changing the shortcut assignments, but may go as far as making major locale specific application modifications or additions. A well designed i18n application will easily support the new language and key assignments, but the modification and additions are usually only possible at the l10n stage. Although it is ideal, a l10n application does not necesarily have to be an i18n application. The translation of the documentation is also an import part that is dealt with durring l10n. Translation (T9N?), is the process of translating the language. Usually the term translation is used to specify a stage of the l10n process, but for some locales the translation stage may be the only stage required for the entire l10n process. Out of these processes, the i18n process is the most important. With good i18n support, the l10n process of complex languages (ie. Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean) is greatly simplified (ask anyone else that did l10n work in one of these languages). Without i18n support the effort put into the l10n process may even justify a code fork (happened very frequently in the past). I support the creation of a deban-l10n for discussion of general l10n issues. It may be better discussing alot of this in the i18n list, but I think it would be very useful for those that are trying to get help in l10n issues for a certain language or a set of languages they want to support. Maybe creating a l10n list for every language may be an option, but that might be a little overkill. ;-) > So if we want to talk about translation in the i18n list, we should at > least change the description of the i18n list. > For example we could change it to "Internationalization (i18n) and > translation (l10n) of the distribution are discussed here." This also sounds good to me. > And currently there is one low traffic "debian-i18n" list and many > "debian-l10n-xxxxxx" lists with higher traffic. So in my opinion, people > are more interested in discussing translation than internationalisation. > So it would be better anyway to change the name of the i18n list (if we > don't want 2 lists). I think we should keep the i18n list either way since l10n and i18n are linked, but separate issues. Thanks, Thomas T. Dorsey
