Re: ABOUT-NLS

[Micah Cowan]

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Bruno Haible wrote:
> Micah Cowan wrote in
> <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-automake/2008-03/msg00020.html>:
>>> If one of these changes are agreeable, I'd be happy to submit a
>>> patch to this effect.
> 
> Thanks for the offer. ABOUT-NLS is provided by the 'gettextize' program;
> this program knows whether there is an intl/ directory or not. Therefore
> it could choose the right ABOUT-NLS among two or three possibilities.
> 
> Can you indicate which sections and paragraphs of ABOUT-NLS should be
> removed or modified for wget? Is only the talk about --with-included-gettext
> inappropriate?

Mostly, but there are a few other places, too. I've attached a proposed
diff to transform from current ABOUT-NLS from CVS to the "lite" version.
It's a rough patch, and may elide some information which is still
valuable, but needs to be worded very differently in order to suit
packages which lack an intl/ subdirectory.

In particular, since no version of gettext is included, installation
thereof _is_ required, instructions on how to do so are probably
appropriate. And, reporting the version number of gettext for suspected
internationalization bugs may still be useful, but finding that
information would be different from the method described, so for now I
just removed that whole paragraph.

It's not out of the question that Wget might start including a
prepackaged gettext at some point; but at any rate this problem will
still apply to other packages which choose not to include gettext.

- --
Micah J. Cowan
Programmer, musician, typesetting enthusiast, gamer,
and GNU Wget Project Maintainer.
http://micah.cowan.name/
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--- ABOUT-NLS   2008-03-24 10:53:56.000000000 -0700
+++ ABOUT-NLS.lite      2008-03-24 11:07:56.000000000 -0700
@@ -9,44 +9,14 @@
 
    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.
+itself available at your nearest GNU archive site.
 
    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 on translations can 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.
-
-1.1 Quick configuration advice
-==============================
-
-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, message inheritance, automatic
-charset conversion or plural form handling) 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'.
-
-1.2 INSTALL Matters
+1.1 INSTALL Matters
 ===================
 
 Some packages are "localizable" when properly installed; the programs
@@ -56,31 +26,11 @@
 
    By default, this package will be installed to allow translation of
 messages.  It will automatically detect whether the system already
-provides the GNU `gettext' functions.  If not, the included GNU
-`gettext' 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:
+provides the GNU `gettext' functions.  The command:
 
-     ./configure --with-included-gettext
      ./configure --disable-nls
 
-will, respectively, bypass any pre-existing `gettext' to use the
-internationalizing routines provided within this package, 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 not be 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.
+will completely disable translation of messages.
 
    The configuration process will not test for the `catgets' function
 and therefore it will not be used.  The reason is that even an
@@ -96,7 +46,7 @@
 `LINGUAS' should then contain a space separated list of two-letter
 codes, stating which languages are allowed.
 
-1.3 Using This Package
+1.2 Using This Package
 ======================
 
 As a user, if your language has been installed for this package, you
@@ -148,7 +98,7 @@
 to `de_DE' (German as spoken in Germany), and `pt' to `pt_PT'
 (Portuguese as spoken in Portugal) in this context.
 
-1.4 Translating Teams
+1.3 Translating Teams
 =====================
 
 For the Free Translation Project to be a success, we need interested
@@ -177,7 +127,7 @@
 the terminology in use.  Proven linguistic skills are praised more than
 programming skills, here.
 
-1.5 Available Packages
+1.4 Available Packages
 ======================
 
 Languages are not equally supported in all packages.  The following
@@ -1047,7 +997,7 @@
 up-to-date matrix with full percentage details can be found at
 `http://translationproject.org/extra/matrix.html'.
 
-1.6 Using `gettext' in new packages
+1.5 Using `gettext' in new packages
 ===================================
 
 If you are writing a freely available program and want to

ABOUT-NLS.diff.sig
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