| 1 | Notes on the Free Translation Project
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| 2 | *************************************
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| 3 |
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| 4 | Free software is going international! The Free Translation Project
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| 5 | is a way to get maintainers of free software, translators, and users all
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| 6 | together, so that will gradually become able to speak many languages.
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| 7 | A few packages already provide translations for their messages.
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| 8 |
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| 9 | If you found this `ABOUT-NLS' file inside a distribution, you may
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| 10 | assume that the distributed package does use GNU `gettext' internally,
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| 11 | itself available at your nearest GNU archive site. But you do _not_
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| 12 | need to install GNU `gettext' prior to configuring, installing or using
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| 13 | this package with messages translated.
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| 14 |
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| 15 | Installers will find here some useful hints. These notes also
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| 16 | explain how users should proceed for getting the programs to use the
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| 17 | available translations. They tell how people wanting to contribute and
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| 18 | work at translations should contact the appropriate team.
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| 19 |
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| 20 | When reporting bugs in the `intl/' directory or bugs which may be
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| 21 | related to internationalization, you should tell about the version of
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| 22 | `gettext' which is used. The information can be found in the
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| 23 | `intl/VERSION' file, in internationalized packages.
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| 24 |
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| 25 | Quick configuration advice
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| 26 | ==========================
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| 27 |
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| 28 | If you want to exploit the full power of internationalization, you
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| 29 | should configure it using
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| 30 |
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| 31 | ./configure --with-included-gettext
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| 32 |
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| 33 | to force usage of internationalizing routines provided within this
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| 34 | package, despite the existence of internationalizing capabilities in the
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| 35 | operating system where this package is being installed. So far, only
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| 36 | the `gettext' implementation in the GNU C library version 2 provides as
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| 37 | many features (such as locale alias, message inheritance, automatic
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| 38 | charset conversion or plural form handling) as the implementation here.
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| 39 | It is also not possible to offer this additional functionality on top
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| 40 | of a `catgets' implementation. Future versions of GNU `gettext' will
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| 41 | very likely convey even more functionality. So it might be a good idea
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| 42 | to change to GNU `gettext' as soon as possible.
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| 43 |
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| 44 | So you need _not_ provide this option if you are using GNU libc 2 or
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| 45 | you have installed a recent copy of the GNU gettext package with the
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| 46 | included `libintl'.
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| 47 |
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| 48 | INSTALL Matters
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| 49 | ===============
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| 50 |
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| 51 | Some packages are "localizable" when properly installed; the
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| 52 | programs they contain can be made to speak your own native language.
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| 53 | Most such packages use GNU `gettext'. Other packages have their own
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| 54 | ways to internationalization, predating GNU `gettext'.
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| 55 |
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| 56 | By default, this package will be installed to allow translation of
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| 57 | messages. It will automatically detect whether the system already
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| 58 | provides the GNU `gettext' functions. If not, the GNU `gettext' own
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| 59 | library will be used. This library is wholly contained within this
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| 60 | package, usually in the `intl/' subdirectory, so prior installation of
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| 61 | the GNU `gettext' package is _not_ required. Installers may use
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| 62 | special options at configuration time for changing the default
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| 63 | behaviour. The commands:
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| 64 |
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| 65 | ./configure --with-included-gettext
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| 66 | ./configure --disable-nls
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| 67 |
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| 68 | will respectively bypass any pre-existing `gettext' to use the
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| 69 | internationalizing routines provided within this package, or else,
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| 70 | _totally_ disable translation of messages.
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| 71 |
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| 72 | When you already have GNU `gettext' installed on your system and run
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| 73 | configure without an option for your new package, `configure' will
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| 74 | probably detect the previously built and installed `libintl.a' file and
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| 75 | will decide to use this. This might be not what is desirable. You
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| 76 | should use the more recent version of the GNU `gettext' library. I.e.
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| 77 | if the file `intl/VERSION' shows that the library which comes with this
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| 78 | package is more recent, you should use
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| 79 |
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| 80 | ./configure --with-included-gettext
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| 81 |
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| 82 | to prevent auto-detection.
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| 83 |
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| 84 | The configuration process will not test for the `catgets' function
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| 85 | and therefore it will not be used. The reason is that even an
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| 86 | emulation of `gettext' on top of `catgets' could not provide all the
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| 87 | extensions of the GNU `gettext' library.
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| 88 |
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| 89 | Internationalized packages have usually many `po/LL.po' files, where
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