Re: Proposal: fi.po for fileutils

[Karl Eichwalder]

[
    Cleaning up the backlog; I don't remember whether I did already
    process these mails.  Since
    /usr/share/locale/fi/LC_MESSAGES/fileutils.mo is still missing on my
    system it might be worth to talk about it again.
    
    Maybe, the problem was solved otherwise.  In this case, please
    excuse my ignorance.

    Full quote because ot the enlarged Cc list; some comments by me.
]

Jyrki Kuoppala <address@hidden> writes:

> I have a proposal for a very short fi.po for the GNU fileutils
> package.  I have not translated any of the strings, but the date/time
> output formats of ls are corrected into be proper Finnish usage as
> recommended by the language office.

"Incomplete" PO files are perfectly okay.  Sometimes we (the German
team) will need 'de_AT' and 'de_CH' files which will "overload" a few
strings of the 'de' file only.

> It may feel a bit strange to consider accepting a localization file
> with no translations at all, but the situation is that due to
> localization of the date formats (month names), in the fi_FI locale
> date/time output is now a weird, disturbing hybrid of U.S. style date/time
> formatting with Finnish month name abbreviations, and abbrevations are
> not used like this in Finnish.  The output of ls is now:
> 
> $ ls -al /
> total 1006
> drwxr-xr-x   23 root     root          665 helmi  21 08:59 .
> drwxr-xr-x   23 root     root          665 helmi  21 08:59 ..
> -rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          575 syys    9 18:10 .bash_history
> drwxrwxr-x    2 root     root         1475 maalis  7 11:26 bin
> drwxr-xr-x    6 root     root         1024 tammi  20 10:18 boot
> 
> $ ls --full-time -al /
> total 1006
> drwxr-xr-x   23 root     root          665 ke helmi  21 08:59:59 2001 .
> drwxr-xr-x   23 root     root          665 ke helmi  21 08:59:59 2001 ..
> -rw-rw-r--    1 root     root          575 la syys   09 18:10:53 2000 
> .bash_history
> drwxrwxr-x    2 root     root         1475 ke maalis 07 11:26:33 2001 bin
> drwxr-xr-x    6 root     root         1024 la tammi  20 10:18:46 2001 boot
> drwxrwsr-x    2 root     disk          266 ti tammi  09 10:45:30 2001 boot.old
> drwxrwxr-x    2 root     cdrom          35 su touko  23 14:39:58 1999 cdro
> 
> This output is grammatically quite incorrect, and against any common
> usage in Finland.  Month names are commonly not abbreviated, but
> instead the date format dd.mm.yyyy is used.
> 
> My proposed fi.po changes the output into:
> 
> $ ls -la /
> total 139
> drwxr-xr-x   22 root     root          604 26.01.2001 15.19 .
> drwxr-xr-x   22 root     root          604 26.01.2001 15.19 ..
> drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root         1460 22.02.2001 17.16 bin
> drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root         1024 15.01.2001 11.44 boot
> drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root          304 09.01.2001 13.20 boot.old
> drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root           35 30.11.2000 17.24 cdrom
> 
> $ ls -la --full-time /
> total 139
> drwxr-xr-x   22 root     root          604 pe 26.01.2001 15.19.12 .
> drwxr-xr-x   22 root     root          604 pe 26.01.2001 15.19.12 ..
> drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root         1460 to 22.02.2001 17.16.19 bin
> drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root         1024 ma 15.01.2001 11.44.23 boot
> drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root          304 ti 09.01.2001 13.20.25 boot.old
> drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root           35 to 30.11.2000 17.24.25 cdrom
> drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root        27940 to 08.03.2001 06.48.12 dev
> 
> The first format is one character longer than the current format.  If
> the extra length is an issue, the first format could be shortened to:
> 
> drwxr-xr-x   22 root     root          604 26.01. 15.19 .
> drwxr-xr-x   22 root     root          604 12.01.  1996 ..
> drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root         1460 22.02. 17.16 bin
> drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root         1024 15.01. 11.44 boot
> drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root          304 09.01. 13.20 boot.old
> drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root           35 30.11. 17.24 cdrom
> 
> which would be exactly the same length as the U.S. English default
> format.  To me it would seem to be more clear to always print the
> year, but the behaviour used by the U.S. ls of printing nearby dates
> without the year now is OK, too.
> 
> I did read the documentation about your requirement of a copyright
> disclaimer, and no, I haven't sent in a disclaimer for translation
> work.  I have sent in a disclaimer to the FSF for software work around
> 10 years ago.
> 
> However, in this case, I don't think this very short fi.po even
> qualifies as an original work by Finnish (or other?) copyright law,
> as there's no single word of original English or Finnish in it, only
> three strings of formatting symbols.  So perhaps you can consider
> accepting it despite the lack of a copyright disclaimer.

I wouldn't mind to accept it, bu Jim has to decide.  It would be the
best an "official" member of the Finnish team would stand up and submit
the file to address@hidden -- first, he will have to tell
me to change the registry file accordingly.

> You don't have to list my name if it's easier.  But if a disclaimer is
> needed, I can send one to FSF, it just doesn't seem necessary for
> three lines of formatting strings.

> Here's the proposed fi.po, with ls -l in the format that always prints
> the year:
> 
> ------------------------------
> # Finnish messages for fileutils.
> # Copyright © 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> #  <address@hidden>, 2001.
> #
> msgid ""
> msgstr ""
> "Project-Id-Version: fileutils 4.0t\n"
> "POT-Creation-Date: 2001-01-21 10:43+0100\n"
> "PO-Revision-Date: 2001-01-21 10:43+0100\n"
> "Last-Translator: Jyrki Kuoppala <address@hidden>\n"
> "Language-Team: Finnish <address@hidden>\n"
> "MIME-Version: 1.0\n"
> "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1\n"
> "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n"
> 
> #: src/ls.c:1370
> msgid "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y"
> msgstr "%a %2d.%2m.%Y %H.%M.%S"
> 
> #: src/ls.c:1373
> msgid "%b %e  %Y"
> msgstr "%2d.%2m.%Y %H.%M"
> 
> #: src/ls.c:1374
> msgid "%b %e %H:%M"
> msgstr "%2d.%2m.%Y %H.%M"
> 
> ------------------------------
> For the narrower ls -l format, the strings would be:
> 
> #: src/ls.c:1370
> msgid "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y"
> msgstr "%a %2d.%2m.%Y %H.%M.%S"
> 
> #: src/ls.c:1373
> msgid "%b %e  %Y"
> msgstr "%2d.%2m.  %Y"
> 
> #: src/ls.c:1374
> msgid "%b %e %H:%M"
> msgstr "%2d.%2m. %H.%M"
> 
> //Jyrki
> 

Tor Lillqvist <address@hidden> writes:

> Finnish GNU/LI List writes:
>  > My proposed fi.po changes the output into:
> 
>  > drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root         1460 22.02.2001 17.16 bin
>  > drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root         1024 15.01.2001 11.44 boot
> 
>  > drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root         1460 to 22.02.2001 17.16.19 bin
>  > drwxr-xr-x    5 root     root         1024 ma 15.01.2001 11.44.23 boot
> 
> Even if the 22.02.2001 format is the one most commonly used in
> Finland, and I don't have anything against it when used for isolated
> dates, I do think that it is stupid to use it here. Exactly in
> contexts like directory listings the ISO standard format 2001-02-22 is
> the most logical to use. Compare this output from ls -lt:
> 
> -rw-r--r--   1 tml      513         18194 2001-02-25 18:32 NEWS
> -rw-r--r--   1 tml      513             0 2001-02-21 16:16 config.cache
> -rwxr-xr-x   1 tml      513        228525 2001-02-20 22:37 configure~
> -rwxr-xr-x   1 tml      513        150000 2001-02-20 22:22 libtool~
> drwxr-xr-x   4 tml      513             0 2001-02-15 19:57 libltdl
> drwxr-xr-x   3 tml      513             0 2001-02-15 19:57 mail
> -rw-r--r--   1 tml      513          9110 2001-02-05 02:24 ltdl.m4
> -rw-r--r--   1 tml      513          5944 2000-12-14 04:53 README
> -rwxr-xr-x   1 tml      513           647 2000-11-01 01:31 bootstrap
> 
> to this:
> 
> -rw-r--r--   1 tml      513         18194 25.02.2001 18:32 NEWS
> -rw-r--r--   1 tml      513             0 21.02.2001 16:16 config.cache
> -rwxr-xr-x   1 tml      513        228525 20.02.2001 22:37 configure~
> -rwxr-xr-x   1 tml      513        150000 20.02.2001 22:22 libtool~
> drwxr-xr-x   4 tml      513             0 15.02.2001 19:57 libltdl
> drwxr-xr-x   3 tml      513             0 15.02.2001 19:57 mail
> -rw-r--r--   1 tml      513          9110 05.02.2001 02:24 ltdl.m4
> -rw-r--r--   1 tml      513          5944 14.12.2000 04:53 README
> -rwxr-xr-x   1 tml      513           647 01.11.2000 01:31 bootstrap
> 
> Isn't it much easier to quickly get an impression of the file age
> distribution from the first list, where the time units are in strict
> significance order?
> 
> Of course, the obvious question is, why doesn't ls have --date-format
> and --time-format options, then everybody could use their favourite
> format...
> 
> --tml

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