gettext-0.10.36 Japanese PO file

[Iida Yosiaki]

In the chapter "Creating a New PO File" in GNU Gettext
manual from gettext-0.10.36, it reads:

 Content-Type
 ...
 In the GNU system, the following encodings are frequently
 used for the corresponding languages.
 ...
 * `EUC-JP' for Japanese,

On the other hand, in the file ja_JP.Shift_JIS.po, it reads:

 "Language-Team: \n"
 ...
 "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=sjis\n"


I am the coordinator of the Japanese team of the Free
Translation Project and I have several things to point out
on above situation,

* I see that the codeset part in file name
"ja_JP.Shift_JIS.po", IE Shift_JIS, is up to the implementor.
So it is OK to use "Shift_JIS" for Shift JIS, but I see many
implementations have been using "SJIS", instead of
"Shift_JIS".

* Name of the language in Language-Team header is missing.
And, of cource, it must be `Japanese <address@hidden>'.

* The value of the charset parameter "sjis" cannot be found
in the correction of the assigned names of MIME charset:
  ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/iana/assignments/character-sets
I see that this looks just like a MIME header and is *NOT*
exactly a MIME header.  But, as everything but "sjis" in
that line conforms MIME, it will make many people really get
confused, especially those who are familiar with MIME.

* In the Japanese team of the Free Translation Project, we
already have had Japanese PO file for gettext in EUC-JP
charset.  Ignoring and unusing the efforts of Free TP may
make translators get discouraged and potentially ruin the
important relationship between Free Translation Project and
GNU gettext.

* It is mutually convertible between characters in EUC-JP
and Shift_JIS charsets.  When the maintainer really insist
on to support Shift_JIS PO file, maintainer can and had
better get Shift_JIS edition of PO by converting the
original EUC-JP PO file which is translated by assigned
translator who has sent disclaimer.  I don't recommend
snarfing translation by someone else, who is not listed
on fencepost:/gd/gnuorg/copyright.list, at least at this
moment.


Thanks for reading.
--
  iida