Re: Translating Emacs manuals is of strategic importance

[Jean-Christophe Helary]

Thank you Stefan for Ccing this very interesting exchange.

> On Jan 4, 2024, at 13:46, Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm interested in hearing what people think about this, but if
> Jean-Christophe and others intend to set up the relevant infrastructure
> in emacs.git, I think we should try to encourage that.

I’m hoping that Eli will see the benefit of the PO format, the way it 
is (currently) prepared by po4a, even if the Emacs and TexInfo projects 
end up creating a different but relatively compatible tool/process.

Using PO for the manuals will bring to the Emacs community a 
considerable number of qualified and experienced free software 
translator teams.

It will also have the benefit of allowing the easy conversion of 
already existing translations so that they can be provided to teams who 
want to update them.

> I do think it is important that we are careful to set things up in such
> a way that the translating work isn't too disruptive for regular Emacs
> development.

Now that, thanks to Vincent, we have a location for the texi 
translations, I think the next step is simply to make an announcement 
about that (if I had known it would be that simple to actually get the 
ball rolling, I would have proposed that a long time ago).

If, after careful evaluation, a system that provides automatic po (or 
equivalent) files is established, that would allow translator teams to 
rely on Emacs infrastructure and provide an even better workflow for 
teams, one similar to what they are used to in similar important free 
software packages (I’m thinking of gnu/linux distribution 
documentation, of LibreOffice, etc.)

> Personally, I also would like to never have to see the
> French translations in the course of my usage of Emacs: only users that
> ask for it specifically, or use a French locale should see them.

I have honestly no idea how to modify Emacs so that it offers a choice 
of manual languages to users. But once the manuals are provided in texi 
format and build into info files, they should be easy to install and 
peruse by anybody (even if a tutorial maybe necessary).

Also, I fully agree with you about the strategic importance of having 
Emacs and the related manuals translated. Emacs is not anymore a 
developer-only system and a considerable number of users who are not 
scared of learning exotic tools would dive into it and write easy 
automation thanks to the introduction to emacs lisp. That’s a huge 
chance for free software.


-- 
Jean-Christophe Helary @jchelary@emacs.ch
https://traductaire-libre.org
https://mac4translators.blogspot.com
https://sr.ht/~brandelune/omegat-as-a-book/