On Tue, Oct 29, 2002 at 02:01:16AM +0900, Masao Uebayashi wrote:

 > > 	i agree this is a good thing to do, but i'm wondering how to start -
 > 
 > I think we can utilize FreeBSD "man-jp"'s infrastructures, if we
 > decide to do translation.
 > 
 > > 	are there internationalized (*not* localized) groff out there?
 > 
 > According to Soda-san, FreeBSD has only translated and formatted
 > documents, but doesn't have groff in their base.  (Internationalizing
 > groff seems a terrible task... :-)

So, I think translated documentation in the base is a *terrific* idea.

However, in order for it to work (and thus be worth doing), it will take
a seriously dedicated effort.

Here are my thoughts on the subject:

	1. The Board should appoint someone to be "in charge" of the
	   translation efforts.  This person would then coordinate the
	   efforts of the various language translation teams.

	2. Each language should have a set of RT queues -- one for the
	   trunk, and one for each active release branch.  Requests to
	   translate a document can be inserted into the RT queues in
	   an automated fashion.  All of the information is available in
	   a CVS commit message:

		a. Branch name (and thus queue name) is in the
		   Subject: header.

		b. Match files that end in .[1-9] .info and .html
		   ... each file gets its own entry in the queue.

		c. A member of the translation team for a given language
		   would then take responsibility for individual RT
		   queue entries.

	   All this would make it much easier to guage how much progress
	   is being made, in how timely a fashion.

	3. Technical issues -- we'd need to come up with a convention for
	   how manpage subdirectories are named for various languages,
	   and teach the tools that display manpages how to deal with that.

In any case, I *strongly* support the idea of translated documentation, and
encourage the Board to sanction/enable this project.  It will be a great
way to:

	* Increase the number of people directly involved in contributing
	  to the Project (esp. people who feel that they are not qualified
	  to contributed code -- such people are almost always qualified to
	  translate documentation).

	* Increase the knowledge about the NetBSD Operating System of our
	  user base (reading/translating all the documentation certainly
	  will be informative to those people who are engaged in that
	  activity :-)

	* Increase the size of the user base through greater accessibility
	  to documentation.

-- 
        -- Jason R. Thorpe <thorpej@wasabisystems.com>