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.
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'.
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.
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'.
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 August 1997:
Chinese
zh
, Czechcs
, Danishda
, Dutchnl
, Englishen
, Esperantoeo
, Finnishfi
, Frenchfr
, Germande
, Hungarianhu
, Irishga
, Italianit
, Indonesianid
, Japaneseja
, Koreanko
, Latinla
, Norwegianno
, Persianfa
, Polishpl
, Portuguesept
, Russianru
, Sloveniansl
, Spanishes
, Swedishsv
, and Turkishtr
.
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.
Languages are not equally supported in all packages. The following matrix shows the current state of internationalization, as of August 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 sl sv .-------------------------------------------------. bash | [] [] [] | 3 bison | [] [] [] | 3 clisp | [] [] [] [] | 4 cpio | [] [] [] [] [] | 5 diffutils | [] [] [] [] [] | 5 enscript | [] [] [] [] [] [] | 6 fileutils | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 10 findutils | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 8 flex | [] [] [] [] | 4 gcal | [] [] [] [] [] | 5 gettext | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 11 grep | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 9 hello | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 10 id-utils | [] [] [] | 3 indent | [] [] [] [] | 4 libc | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 7 m4 | [] [] [] [] [] | 5 make | [] [] [] [] [] [] | 6 music | [] [] | 2 ptx | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 8 recode | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 9 sh-utils | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 7 sharutils | [] [] [] [] [] | 5 tar | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 10 texinfo | [] | 1 textutils | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 9 wdiff | [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] | 8 `-------------------------------------------------' 16 languages cs da de en es fi fr it ja ko nl no pl pt sl sv 27 packages 3 2 24 1 17 1 26 2 1 11 20 9 19 7 7 17 167
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 August 1997 seems to be old, you may fetch a more recent copy of this `ABOUT-NLS' file on most GNU archive sites.
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