[openbeos] Re: news: development mailing list, distro guidelines

  • From: Simon Taylor <simontaylor1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 9:42:22 +0000

> 
> From: "Jorge G. Mare (a.k.a. Koki)" <koki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 2007/05/22 Tue AM 09:23:02 GMT
> To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [openbeos] Re: news: development mailing list, distro guidelines
> 
> Simon Taylor wrote:
> >> From: "Jorge G. Mare (a.k.a. Koki)" <koki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >>
> >> The Japanese community, for example, are creating a Live CD with a few 
> >> apps to make the thing more enticing (like a Japanese text editor), the 
> >> Japanese input method enabled by default, a nicer Japanese font than the 
> >> default, and a few patches here and there that they need to address some 
> >> language related issues.
> >>     
> >
> > Why are the font and patches not being done on the trunk of Haiku? That is 
> > one of the major drivers for reducing the number of distros - so everyone 
> > can benefit from work being done.
> >   
> 
> I asked the question, and apparently it is not that simple.
> 
> For example, one of the patches is needed for unzip to be able to handle 
> certain double-byte characters properly; the patch breaks single-byte 
> latin characters support though, so it is not likely to be acceptable in 
> a non-Japanese environment.

I'm surprised that's acceptable even in a Japanese environment - so if a user 
ever wishes to unzip a normal zip file (such as, say, the official Haiku 
downloads) it would fail. That's exactly the kind of weird behaviour that we 
don't want the Haiku name to be associated with.

On the more general topic of localised distributions - I believe R1 is likely 
to be English only? So that leaves two options:
1) Produce a 3rd party R1 distribution that follows the guidelines - new name 
and logo. If the localisation is the biggest part then I suppose a Japanese 
name would be more appropriate anyway. This distro could use the "Haiku 
Compatible" badge. Pre R1, demos of this distro, branded as such, can be made.
2) Produce demo CDs that more accurately reflect how R1 will be - ie in English.

As the goal seems to be to attract developers for Haiku, I have to say option 2 
makes more sense. It is a sad fact that in order to be a viable contributor to 
the project developers will need to be comfortable working in an environment 
where all the discussion takes place in English.

Simon

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