| Notes on the Free Translation Project | |
| ************************************* | |
| Free software is going international! The Free Translation Project | |
| is a way to get maintainers of free software, translators, and users all | |
| together, so that will gradually become able to speak many languages. | |
| A few packages already provide translations for their messages. | |
| If you found this `ABOUT-NLS' file inside a distribution, you may | |
| assume that the distributed package does use GNU `gettext' internally, | |
| itself available at your nearest GNU archive site. But you do *not* | |
| need to install GNU `gettext' prior to configuring, installing or using | |
| this package with messages translated. | |
| Installers will find here some useful hints. These notes also | |
| explain how users should proceed for getting the programs to use the | |
| available translations. They tell how people wanting to contribute and | |
| work at translations should contact the appropriate team. | |
| When reporting bugs in the `intl/' directory or bugs which may be | |
| related to internationalization, you should tell about the version of | |
| `gettext' which is used. The information can be found in the | |
| `intl/VERSION' file, in internationalized packages. | |
| One advise in advance | |
| ===================== | |
| If you want to exploit the full power of internationalization, you | |
| should configure it using | |
| ./configure --with-included-gettext | |
| to force usage of internationalizing routines provided within this | |
| package, despite the existence of internationalizing capabilities in the | |
| operating system where this package is being installed. So far, only | |
| the `gettext' implementation in the GNU C library version 2 provides as | |
| many features (such as locale alias or message inheritance) as the | |
| implementation here. It is also not possible to offer this additional | |
| functionality on top of a `catgets' implementation. Future versions of | |
| GNU `gettext' will very likely convey even more functionality. So it | |
| might be a good idea to change to GNU `gettext' as soon as possible. | |
| So you need not provide this option if you are using GNU libc 2 or | |
| you have installed a recent copy of the GNU gettext package with the | |
| included `libintl'. | |
| INSTALL Matters | |
| =============== | |
| Some packages are "localizable" when properly installed; the | |
| programs they contain can be made to speak your own native language. | |
| Most such packages use GNU `gettext'. Other packages have their own | |
| ways to internationalization, predating GNU `gettext'. | |
| By default, this package will be installed to allow translation of | |
| messages. It will automatically detect whether the system provides | |
| usable `catgets' (if using this is selected by the installer) or | |
| `gettext' functions. If neither is available, the GNU `gettext' own | |
| library will be used. This library is wholly contained within this | |
| package, usually in the `intl/' subdirectory, so prior installation of | |
| the GNU `gettext' package is *not* required. Installers may use | |
| special options at configuration time for changing the default | |
| behaviour. The commands: | |
| ./configure --with-included-gettext | |
| ./configure --with-catgets | |
| ./configure --disable-nls | |
| will respectively bypass any pre-existing `catgets' or `gettext' to use | |
| the internationalizing routines provided within this package, enable | |
| the use of the `catgets' functions (if found on the locale system), or | |
| else, *totally* disable translation of messages. | |
| When you already have GNU `gettext' installed on your system and run | |
| configure without an option for your new package, `configure' will | |
| probably detect the previously built and installed `libintl.a' file and | |
| will decide to use this. This might be not what is desirable. You | |
| should use the more recent version of the GNU `gettext' library. I.e. | |
| if the file `intl/VERSION' shows that the library which comes with this | |
| package is more recent, you should use | |
| ./configure --with-included-gettext | |
| to prevent auto-detection. | |
| By default the configuration process will not test for the `catgets' | |
| function and therefore they will not be used. The reasons are already | |
| given above: the emulation on top of `catgets' cannot provide all the | |
| extensions provided by the GNU `gettext' library. If you nevertheless | |
| want to use the `catgets' functions use | |
| ./configure --with-catgets | |
| to enable the test for `catgets' (this causes no harm if `catgets' is | |
| not available on your system). If you really select this option we | |
| would like to hear about the reasons because we cannot think of any | |
| good one ourself. | |
| Internationalized packages have usually many `po/LL.po' files, where | |
| LL gives an ISO 639 two-letter code identifying the language. Unless | |
| translations have been forbidden at `configure' time by using the | |
| `--disable-nls' switch, all available translations are installed | |
| together with the package. However, the environment variable `LINGUAS' | |
| may be set, prior to configuration, to limit the installed set. | |
| `LINGUAS' should then contain a space separated list of two-letter | |
| codes, stating which languages are allowed. | |
| Using This Package | |
| ================== | |
| As a user, if your language has been installed for this package, you | |
| only have to set the `LANG' environment variable to the appropriate | |
| ISO 639 `LL' two-letter code prior to using the programs in the | |
| package. For example, let's suppose that you speak German. At the | |
| shell prompt, merely execute `setenv LANG de' (in `csh'), | |
| `export LANG; LANG=de' (in `sh') or `export LANG=de' (in `bash'). This | |
| can be done from your `.login' or `.profile' file, once and for all. | |
| An operating system might already offer message localization for | |
| many of its programs, while other programs have been installed locally | |
| with the full capabilities of GNU `gettext'. Just using `gettext' | |
| extended syntax for `LANG' would break proper localization of already | |
| available operating system programs. In this case, users should set | |
| both `LANGUAGE' and `LANG' variables in their environment, as programs | |
| using GNU `gettext' give preference to `LANGUAGE'. For example, some | |
| Swedish users would rather read translations in German than English for | |
| when Swedish is not available. This is easily accomplished by setting | |
| `LANGUAGE' to `sv:de' while leaving `LANG' to `sv'. | |
| Translating Teams | |
| ================= | |
| For the Free Translation Project to be a success, we need interested | |
| people who like their own language and write it well, and who are also | |
| able to synergize with other translators speaking the same language. | |
| Each translation team has its own mailing list, courtesy of Linux | |
| International. You may reach your translation team at the address | |
| `LL@li.org', replacing LL by the two-letter ISO 639 code for your | |
| language. Language codes are *not* the same as the country codes given | |
| in ISO 3166. The following translation teams exist, as of December | |
| 1997: | |
| Chinese `zh', Czech `cs', Danish `da', Dutch `nl', English `en', | |
| Esperanto `eo', Finnish `fi', French `fr', German `de', Hungarian | |
| `hu', Irish `ga', Italian `it', Indonesian `id', Japanese `ja', | |
| Korean `ko', Latin `la', Norwegian `no', Persian `fa', Polish | |
| `pl', Portuguese `pt', Russian `ru', Slovenian `sl', Spanish `es', | |
| Swedish `sv', and Turkish `tr'. | |
| For example, you may reach the Chinese translation team by writing to | |
| `zh@li.org'. | |
| If you'd like to volunteer to *work* at translating messages, you | |
| should become a member of the translating team for your own language. | |
| The subscribing address is *not* the same as the list itself, it has | |
| `-request' appended. For example, speakers of Swedish can send a | |
| message to `sv-request@li.org', having this message body: | |
| subscribe | |
| Keep in mind that team members are expected to participate | |
| *actively* in translations, or at solving translational difficulties, | |
| rather than merely lurking around. If your team does not exist yet and | |
| you want to start one, or if you are unsure about what to do or how to | |
| get started, please write to `translation@iro.umontreal.ca' to reach the | |
| coordinator for all translator teams. | |
| The English team is special. It works at improving and uniformizing | |
| the terminology in use. Proven linguistic skill are praised more than | |
| programming skill, here. | |
| Available Packages | |
| ================== | |
| Languages are not equally supported in all packages. The following | |
| matrix shows the current state of internationalization, as of December | |
| 1997. The matrix shows, in regard of each package, for which languages | |
| PO files have been submitted to translation coordination. | |
| Ready PO files cs da de en es fi fr it ja ko nl no pl pt ru sl sv | |
| .----------------------------------------------------. | |
| bash | [] [] [] | 3 | |
| bison | [] [] [] | 3 | |
| clisp | [] [] [] [] | 4 | |
| cpio | [] [] [] [] [] [] | 6 | |
| diffutils | [] [] [] [] [] | 5 | |
| enscript | [] [] [] [] [] [] | 6 | |
| fileutils | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 10 | |
| findutils | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 9 | |
| flex | [] [] [] [] | 4 | |
| gcal | [] [] [] [] [] | 5 | |
| gettext | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 12 | |
| grep | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 10 | |
| hello | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 11 | |
| id-utils | [] [] [] | 3 | |
| indent | [] [] [] [] [] | 5 | |
| libc | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 7 | |
| m4 | [] [] [] [] [] [] | 6 | |
| make | [] [] [] [] [] [] | 6 | |
| music | [] [] | 2 | |
| ptx | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 8 | |
| recode | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 9 | |
| sh-utils | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 8 | |
| sharutils | [] [] [] [] [] [] | 6 | |
| tar | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 11 | |
| texinfo | [] [] [] | 3 | |
| textutils | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 9 | |
| wdiff | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 8 | |
| `----------------------------------------------------' | |
| 17 languages cs da de en es fi fr it ja ko nl no pl pt ru sl sv | |
| 27 packages 6 4 25 1 18 1 26 2 1 12 20 9 19 7 4 7 17 179 | |
| Some counters in the preceding matrix are higher than the number of | |
| visible blocks let us expect. This is because a few extra PO files are | |
| used for implementing regional variants of languages, or language | |
| dialects. | |
| For a PO file in the matrix above to be effective, the package to | |
| which it applies should also have been internationalized and | |
| distributed as such by its maintainer. There might be an observable | |
| lag between the mere existence a PO file and its wide availability in a | |
| distribution. | |
| If December 1997 seems to be old, you may fetch a more recent copy | |
| of this `ABOUT-NLS' file on most GNU archive sites. | |