Re: Make GNUN more user-friendly

[Ineiev]

On 08/29/2013 10:08 PM, Thérèse Godefroy wrote:
> Le jeudi 29 août 2013 à 15:19 +0400, Ineiev a écrit :
>
> [...]
>> This works in a different way: GNUN's cron job sends a message
>> to the relevant list.  in theory, the same could be done with
>> the translations staged in team's repository.
>
> If you want GNUN to detect all the validation errors on site and send
> emails, that's fine.

I see no reason why it couldn't also make the generated pages
available somewhere.

> But I see this as an unnecessary load on the server
> because the same file has to be processed twice.

Isn't it better to process it twice than once for every translator
who wants to get the page and builds it locally?

> Small load, I grant
> you, but the way it is now -- the server is nearly blocked at times

GNUN runs on a different server, and it is not overloaded.

Moreover, if the pages were processed in a single point, it would
reduce the need of people to frequently update their `www' working
copies (not that I think it can be a considerable part of
vcs.sv.gnu.org's load, though).

> [...]
>> Autotools are needed to prepare a GNU Coding Standards-compliant
>> distribution tarball (strictly speaking, they are not needed,
>> but in practice it's the tool to make the job feasible).
>
> Of course, but the packages that non-geeks install on their machines are
> "binary" (meaning ready to install with dpkg, rpm, yum or whatever).

(I don't see the logical link; those who install from a tarball
don't need Autotools.)

> Very few people get the sources, even tho they are available.

This doesn't mean that it's a major problem to install from
the sources. GNUN's "build" requirements are quite moderate;
it even doesn't want a C compiler.

> [...]
>> If yes, then it is a different activity (from maintaining
>> the "upstream"), and it is typically done by other people.
>
> Of course. I am not saying that it should be done, but that it can be
> done.

Of course, it can.

> I was just fed up with the trans-coord folder.

This is why we make official releases and take care not to introduce
changes that would be incompatible with the latest release --- there
should be no need to install from CVS.

> It would probably install correctly on all the recent versions of
> Ubuntu, Trisquel, GnewSense, etc., besides Debian

I think it may or may not.

> (GNU/Linux implied).

Well, GNUN can run, just fine and out-of-box, on top of GNU/Hurd/Mach.

> And Alien can make an rpm from a deb and vice-versa.

Now, I believe it is a lesser hassle to install from the sources
than via Alien.