Inclusion of translated git manpages into the packaging systems

Inclusion of translated git manpages into the packaging systems

[Jean-Noël AVILA]

Hi,

I took on the task of creating a project for the translation of man-pages at 
https://github.com/jnavila/git-manpages-l10n

Up to now, the translations have started for 3 languages:

* German (2 pages)
* Brazilian Portuguese (6 pages)
* French (11pages)

In order to provide feedback to translators, it's time to have these pages 
included with the distributions of git. Right now the process of compilation 
of the man-pages is still a bit off-tree, because it relies on a recent version 
of po4a (v0.56) which has not yet reached most distros.

I miss expertise in the process of packaging. Depending on the type of 
distribution, the route to packaging might differ (for Mac OS and Windows, 
maybe a direct inclusion, for Linux dists sister packages). That's why I need 
your help to correctly perform this integration.

Thanks in advance,

Jean-Noël 

Re: Inclusion of translated git manpages into the packaging systems

[Johannes Schindelin]

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Hi Jean-Noël,

On Sun, 9 Jun 2019, Jean-Noël AVILA wrote:

> I took on the task of creating a project for the translation of man-pages at
> https://github.com/jnavila/git-manpages-l10n
>
> Up to now, the translations have started for 3 languages:
>
> * German (2 pages)
> * Brazilian Portuguese (6 pages)
> * French (11pages)

Nice!!!

> In order to provide feedback to translators, it's time to have these
> pages included with the distributions of git. Right now the process of
> compilation of the man-pages is still a bit off-tree, because it relies
> on a recent version of po4a (v0.56) which has not yet reached most
> distros.

Maybe there is a way to skip the Makefile task when a too-old po4a is
detected, with a warning?

> I miss expertise in the process of packaging. Depending on the type of
> distribution, the route to packaging might differ (for Mac OS and
> Windows, maybe a direct inclusion, for Linux dists sister packages).
> That's why I need your help to correctly perform this integration.

Historically, Git for Windows punts on translations, excluding any
non-en-US documentation (to save on bandwidth for the installer, which did
grow from <30MB to 44MB in the last four years alone).

There were a couple of motions to change that (maybe in the form of add-on
packages/installers, maybe in the form of a "full" installer), but nothing
came of it so far.

Therefore, as far as Windows is concerned, I hate to admit that my answer
is "don't worry for now, we only include US-English documentation
anyway"... :-(

Ciao,
Dscho

Re: Inclusion of translated git manpages into the packaging systems

[Jean-Noël AVILA]

On Monday, 10 June 2019 19:09:54 CEST Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> Hi Jean-Noël,
> 
> On Sun, 9 Jun 2019, Jean-Noël AVILA wrote:
> 
> > I took on the task of creating a project for the translation of man-pages 
at
> > https://github.com/jnavila/git-manpages-l10n
> >
> > Up to now, the translations have started for 3 languages:
> >
> > * German (2 pages)
> > * Brazilian Portuguese (6 pages)
> > * French (11pages)
> 
> Nice!!!
> 
> > In order to provide feedback to translators, it's time to have these
> > pages included with the distributions of git. Right now the process of
> > compilation of the man-pages is still a bit off-tree, because it relies
> > on a recent version of po4a (v0.56) which has not yet reached most
> > distros.
> 
> Maybe there is a way to skip the Makefile task when a too-old po4a is
> detected, with a warning?

The project is provided with a script that downloads the correct version of 
po4a from the root repo (this is needed for ci).

I can provide an archive comprising the precompiled manpages so that packagers 
don't need to mess up with po4a.

> 
> > I miss expertise in the process of packaging. Depending on the type of
> > distribution, the route to packaging might differ (for Mac OS and
> > Windows, maybe a direct inclusion, for Linux dists sister packages).
> > That's why I need your help to correctly perform this integration.
> 
> Historically, Git for Windows punts on translations, excluding any
> non-en-US documentation (to save on bandwidth for the installer, which did
> grow from <30MB to 44MB in the last four years alone).

It might not be the correct argument for now, but a tgz of the manpages 
presently weights 230kB.

> 
> There were a couple of motions to change that (maybe in the form of add-on
> packages/installers, maybe in the form of a "full" installer), but nothing
> came of it so far.

If there's any chance to get this move alive, who should I refer to? 
Otherwise, where can an additional package be built?

> 
> Therefore, as far as Windows is concerned, I hate to admit that my answer
> is "don't worry for now, we only include US-English documentation
> anyway"... :-(
> 
> Ciao,
> Dscho

Re: Inclusion of translated git manpages into the packaging systems

[Junio C Hamano]

Jean-Noël AVILA <jn.avila@free.fr> writes:

> I can provide an archive comprising the precompiled manpages so that packagers 
> don't need to mess up with po4a.

That's an interesting thing to hear---if this effort eventually
relieves me from having to supply preformatted manpages and HTML
docs (after all, en/C is just one more locale from your point of
view, right?), that would be an excellent news for me ;-)

The last-mile packagers that are directly facing end-users would be
happy to have a place (or two) that they can pull the pre-built docs
for these locales from, and they would not particularly care where
exactly those places are, I think.

Re: Inclusion of translated git manpages into the packaging systems

[Jean-Noël AVILA]

On Monday, 10 June 2019 21:15:58 CEST Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Jean-Noël AVILA <jn.avila@free.fr> writes:
> 
> > I can provide an archive comprising the precompiled manpages so that 
packagers 
> > don't need to mess up with po4a.
> 
> That's an interesting thing to hear---if this effort eventually
> relieves me from having to supply preformatted manpages and HTML
> docs (after all, en/C is just one more locale from your point of
> view, right?), that would be an excellent news for me ;-)

I wasn't expecting this one ;-D In fact, the translation project is different 
in two points:

 * Not all the sources have been copied; only sources for some manpages
 * the en version is the source for translation. It's not compiled (why 
bother? it's already done in the main repo).

> 
> The last-mile packagers that are directly facing end-users would be
> happy to have a place (or two) that they can pull the pre-built docs
> for these locales from, and they would not particularly care where
> exactly those places are, I think.

BTW, who is using the preformatted docs? If it's useful to anybody to have 
access to the compound of en + translated docs, such repo can be set up.

Please note that Johannes clearly stated that git-for-windows cannot afford 
more weight, so English only manpages are still required.