Re: [RFD] Documentation/HOWTO translated into Japanese

From: Matthias Schniedermeyer
Date: Sun Jun 10 2007 - 14:23:48 EST


Greg KH wrote:
On Sun, Jun 10, 2007 at 02:24:51PM +0200, Jesper Juhl wrote:
Since the common language of most kernel contributors is english I
personally feel that we should stick to just that one language in the
tree and then perhaps keep translations on a website somewhere. So the
authoritative docs stay in the tree, in english, so that as many
contributors as possible can read and update them. It would then be a
seperate project to generate translations and keep them updated
according to what's in the tree. Perhaps we could get the kernel.org
people to create an official space for that and then place a pointer
to that site in Documentation/ somewhere.

No, I think the translated files should be in the tree proper, we have
the space :)

Frankly i don't see the difference between this and the annual reoccurring "why can't the kernel messages be localized" discussion.
(Which is a little overdue, but maybe this replaces it this time.)

I could see the point in ONE "HOWTO" file per language to get people started, but everything else is a pointless exercise.
A developer/bug-reporter has to be able to express him-/herself in English and understand English, otherwise you can not accomplish very much.

All the points of the localized-messages discussion:
- You have to have a common language, otherwise you can't communicate.
- The translation will per definition be out of sync
- Translations tend to introduce (translation-)errors
- ...
also apply here.

A little anecdote:
Very Long ago (last millennium i think) SuSE defaulted to a german translated kernel for one release of their distribution. (And optionally for a few more)
But even though i'm german i couldn't understand a single word.


And here is the FAQ-Entry about the annually reoccurring discussion:
http://www.tux.org/lkml/#s9-16





Bis denn

--
Real Programmers consider "what you see is what you get" to be just as
bad a concept in Text Editors as it is in women. No, the Real Programmer
wants a "you asked for it, you got it" text editor -- complicated,
cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, dangerous.

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