I18N/Meetings/2007-08-14

= I18N Session at FUDConF8 2007-08-14 Minutes =

Special meeting as part of  FUDConF8 :


 * 2007-08-14 2300-2400 UTC on #fudcon at Freenode

Agenda

 * Status update on im-chooser and scim for F8 -- JensPetersen, AkiraTagoh
 * CIJK fonts-* renaming (continued) -- JensPetersen
 * License field updating for i18n packages (reminder) -- JensPetersen
 * Open Discussion
 * Onscreen keyboard (matchbox-keyboard support for m17n?) -- JensPetersen

Log
23:01:01 	ok it is now after 23:00 UTC 23:01:27 	Welcome to the i18n session here at the virtual fudcon :-) 23:02:34 *	juhp feels a little awed with some many people :) 23:03:31 	gday juhp 23:03:37 *	fabian_a has quit (Read error: 110 (Connection timed out)) 23:03:43 *	tagoh3 listens 23:03:52 	when planning this session wasn't quite sure how to position it - it will probably a bit of a mixture of status report, discussion and Q&A 23:04:00 	hey tagoh3 :) 23:04:15 	http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/I18N/Meetings 23:04:31 	hi dgilmore 23:04:41 *	dgilmore is listening in 23:05:04 *	G_ has quit (Read error: 110 (Connection timed out)) 23:05:22 	so we have various topics to talk about and time for some open discussion too I think 23:07:03 	just wanted to add that we timed this talk to make it possible for people in the US to join in too 23:07:34 	but it is actually a holiday today in Brisbane and Pune too, so not sure how many redhat i18n people will be here 23:07:43 	anyway let's started: 23:07:59 	# Status update on im-chooser and scim for F8 -- JensPetersen, AkiraTagoh 23:08:09 *	rnorwood (i=rnorwood@nat/redhat/x-8992b792a59c9718) has joined #fudcon 23:08:49 	stupid ekka 23:08:51 	so for F8 tagoh3 is doing so work on im-chooser to improve the UI to make it more intuitive 23:08:55 	dgilmore: heh 23:09:53 	dgilmore: I had actually forgotten about it, and thought better not to have the i18n session at the very end of the fudcon ;) 23:10:11 	im-chooser lets you pick non latin based languages right? 23:11:25 	also I am hoping at the same time to change the scim install defaults back 23:11:38 	dgilmore: basically yes. but it depends on what the kind of languages are available in IM 23:12:29 	so that scim is no longer installed by default (done) but starts (for most users) by default if IM engines are installed (mostly done for scim but not built yet) 23:13:01 *	EvilBob has quit (Remote closed the connection) 23:13:25 	dgilmore: right, it is a small tool to turn IM (input methods) on or off (and choose between them if you have more than one installed) 23:14:06 *	fabian_a (n=Fabian@84-75-195-242.dclient.hispeed.ch) has joined #fudcon 23:14:53 	so I think IM default should be much better in F8 than they were in F7, where core scim packages got installed for everyone unfortunately 23:15:21 	tagoh3: do you want to say anything about the im-chooser stuff? :) 23:15:40 	sure. 23:15:59 *	jortel-lt has quit (Remote closed the connection) 23:16:15 *	juhp doesn't have the url to the wikipage around 23:16:40 	on F8, im-chooser just got a trivial fix not to get confused in words. for next step, as juhp said, I'm planning to have further UI improvements on im-chooser 23:16:49 	http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/AkiraTagoh/IMChooser/UIImprovements 23:16:51 	juhp: there's no way that you're going to get to where scim isn't installed by default for a substantial percentage of users 23:17:04 	here is a mockup for next im-chooser. 23:17:20 	tagoh3: thanks 23:17:22 	juhp: live cds are a *huge* chunk of our users. unless you're saying that we just abandon scim on the live image (which I think is kind of silly...), most of our users are going to be getting it 23:18:12 	jeremy: yep, that is true - I was thinking more about non-livecd users 23:18:29 	juhp: we should just install it everywhere and make sure the user experience doesn't suck with it installed 23:18:46 	because if the user experience sucks with it installed, we've lost. if it's good with it installed, then we should just always have it available to make it more discoverable 23:19:03 	jeremy: but i have a mechanism in the scim xinputrc file to avoid when no IMEs are installed 23:19:35 	jeremy: are there really so many livecd uesrs? 23:19:38 	juhp: yes 23:19:45 	jeremy: i think thats the right way to go also 23:20:04 	jeremy: do we have some stats for livecd users? :) 23:20:39 <|DrJef|>	juhp, we've got livecd downloads from the torrent i think 23:20:42 	juhp: a quick look at the torrent stats is that roughly 25% of the downloads via torrent are one of the liveimages 23:21:16 	jeremy: well on non-livecd no scim IMEs are installed - so there really is no point to install the core scim packages there - I agree it is a completely different story for live 23:21:29 	(installed typically) 23:22:08 	juhp: there's a good argument for actually installing language support by default across the board 23:22:37 	jeremy: so install all scim and fonts for all users? :) 23:22:44 	yep 23:22:49 	aha 23:23:02 	fun 23:23:10 *	juhp is glad we're finally having this discussion :) 23:24:00 	ok that is good input and feedback - I guess we will have to go away and think things through a bit more 23:24:22 <|DrJef|>	jeremy, that's it we all learn esperanto and officially only support it 23:24:23 	not likely to happen for Fedora 8, but I think there's a really strong chance of it for Fedora 9. but even if not, the live images are only going to become more used and more popular.  and we definitely do it there 23:24:31 	jeremy: I still feel that installing all oo.o langpacks etc for all users is a bit overkill 23:24:33 	|DrJef|: heh 23:24:50 *	EvilBob (n=bob@fedora/pdpc.sustaining.BobJensen) has joined #FUDcon 23:25:23 <|DrJef|>	jeremy, extensive language support makes livecd's..really really cramped 23:25:36 	|DrJef|: true 23:25:44 	|DrJef|: you don't have a bluray drive yet? 23:26:09 	jeremy: chance of installing all lang support you mean? 23:26:29 	ah esperanto? hehe 23:26:48 *	corbet (n=user@vc7-1-72.dsl.netrack.net) has left #fudcon ("ERC Version 5.1 (CVS) $Revision: 1.796 $ (IRC client for Emacs)") 23:28:14 	ok maybe we should move to the next topic 23:28:32 	unless there are any more comments on that? 23:29:21 	# CIJK fonts package renaming (continued) -- JensPetersen 23:30:06 	so in our last meeting we started talking about renaming/splitting the generically named fonts-* packages 23:30:54 	and i was going to post about that on the mailing lists and file some bugs related to it 23:31:13 	but didn't get round to it yet actually :-/ 23:32:28 	however we have been doing so work on fonts-chinese recently and I started realising this it is not so trivial work 23:32:35 	juhp: whats that entail? 23:33:53 	dgilmore: ok so currently we ship packages like fonts-{chinese,japanese,korean} which contain a mixture of upstreams/packages 23:34:26 *	MondayMorning has quit (Read error: 110 (Connection timed out)) 23:34:47 	so you were going to do one srpm per tarball? 23:34:48 	so the goal is really two-fold: to have packages which reflect the upstream names of the fonts and also to separate the sources if possible 23:35:11 	juhp: probably it's not the case here so that there are no reasons to keep the place to be installed. so it shouldn't be a problem for splitting 23:35:22 	dgilmore: well ideally - unless they are like parallel releases 23:35:32 *	dbewley has quit (Client Quit) 23:35:43 	would you then do something like a fonts-japanese meta package that pulls in all the sub packages? 23:35:52 	tagoh3: yeah that is true - moving the fonts to separate dirs should help a lot :) 23:36:01 	dgilmore: yes I think so 23:36:44 	tagoh3: I guess if we're going to proceed now, we really need to do it before test2 :) 23:37:04 	I should start filing those bugs... 23:37:16 	yep 23:37:41 	okay that sounds good then 23:38:11 	I'll try to do that this week then 23:40:02 	not sure if I should bring this up here so that I don't really spend too much time for deprecated stuff... how about the usability issue on the bitmap fonts? particularly it's hard to have a suitable aliases after splitting 23:41:23 	tagoh3: yes that is a good point 23:42:01 	tagoh3: so is it better to keep the bitmap fonts together after splitting? 23:42:03 	I don't know how much applications still depends on X core font though, I still need it as long as I use emacs :) 23:42:14 	juhp: I think so 23:42:14 	tagoh3: or doing it in a meta package? 23:42:15 *	steved (n=steved@4dicksons.org) has left #fudcon ("Leaving") 23:42:28 	right ;-) 23:42:41 	ok 23:43:48 	# License field updating for i18n packages (reminder) 23:44:45 	ok, this is just really a reminder for contributors maintaining i18n packages (reading this log say;) that they need review the licenses of the code of their packages and update the License field of the packages appropriately 23:46:31 *	jelyfish (n=jelyfish@cblmdm72-241-80-44.buckeyecom.net) has left #fudcon ("Konversation terminated!") 23:46:54 <|DrJef|>	jeremy, no blueray drive here. i don't have enough credit to get the finances to buy a ps3 23:47:47 	if there are no questions or concerns about it, let's move into the discussion 23:48:03 	# Open Discussion 23:48:46 	does anyone have any questions or topics related to Fedora i18n to talk about? 23:49:45 	juhp, I do have one thing to discuss 23:49:51 	paragn: sure 23:50:06 	this is related with packaging of newer fonts 23:50:11 	aha 23:50:55 	I think we should have some SPEC template on Fedora wiki for newer contributors who want to package new fonts 23:51:30 	ok that might be useful 23:51:53 	paragn: so something more detailed than just the current script snippet? 23:52:48 	packaging guidelines for font would be good? 23:53:11 	I agree it would be good to have more documentation for packaging fonts, since it is a bit tricky sometimes 23:53:12 	paragn: perhaps come up with one and get it into rpmdevtools 23:53:14 	tagoh3: yes 23:53:17 	tagoh3, yes 23:53:35 	dgilmore, sure will work on it 23:53:36 	specially bitmap fonts 23:53:44 	paragn: great 23:54:28 	juhp: so other than input issues what does the i18n team at RH do? 23:54:57 	juhp: what kind of things are you guys doing to get more community involvement in the i18n process? 23:55:03 	dgilmore: well the other big thing is rendering, ie display of international langs 23:55:56 *	dgilmore being accustomed to aussie input is not totally aware of what factors face people out there 23:56:09 	juhp, do you think it's a good idea to consider adding "infrastructure support for the localization project" another goal for the i18n group? 23:56:37 	dgilmore: eg pango support for indic scripts and display in different applications for example 23:56:55 	juhp: indic == indian? 23:57:03 	glezos: hmm interesting idea 23:57:05 	dgilmore: yes 23:57:46 	juhp: where do you guys develop your software? inhouse or upstream? 23:57:59 	glezos: how do you think we can help? 23:58:16 	dgilmore: mostly contributions to upstream 23:58:23 	juhp, I'm asking because AFAIK this is how other big projects work, and the L10n group in general is not very technically savvy (not to mention that they spend their time in what they are good at: translating) 23:58:53 	glezos: right that is true :) 23:59:04 *	dgilmore would like to see a community built around i18n like localisation 23:59:19 	juhp, hm.. maybe slowly consider maintaining our tools like the website and transifex 23:59:24 	it seems to me as an outsider that i18n is mostly done by RH people 23:59:35 	juhp: cool 23:59:40 *	dgilmore needs to run 23:59:48 	juhp: thanks i learnt some things 23:59:51 	dgilmore, we could make the project 10x more active if we could get more community involvement 00:00:05 	glezos: well in principle we would be willing to help - I just it is just a question of resources and time :) 00:00:45 	juhp, agreed -- and that's where the community could help a lot 00:01:03 	dgilmore, glezos for Indic I18n we already have Lohit project where community is free to contribute 00:01:07 	https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Lohit 00:01:59 	juhp, I'd feel very, very confident if I knew that Fedora's i18n team could be helping out in (maintaining?) Transifex for example. 00:02:45 	juhp, maybe we could put it as a goal and regular meeting topic on how to bring the two projects closer together. 00:02:51 	glezos: let's talk more about it :) - until now we haven't had much involvement - I can try to talk to some of the RH l10n people to see if they are interested too 00:03:30 	glezos: yes that sounds like a good idea 00:03:32 	juhp, the gnome-i18n team is a great example 00:03:39 	maybe we could see how they interact with the l10n community 00:03:59 	dgilmore: agree completely - would like to see more community involvement in i18n 00:04:14 	dgilmore: ah - see you! 00:05:01 	juhp, I'm sure these meetings help a lot in this respect (opening up procedures, letting more people contribute) 00:05:28 	well to try to answer your question anyway: so we started recently having open meetings on irc and getting a few more people involved in packaging etc, but it is hard work :) 00:05:38 	glezos: yup - they do 00:05:42 	:-) 00:06:52 	maybe I can just briefly mention a couple of other things we are/have been doing recently 00:07:40 	paragn is doing some work to document m17n maps for Indic input - which should be appearing on the fedoraproject wiki soon :) 00:08:11 	yup they will be on wiki by this week end :) 00:08:32 	and huzheng in Beijing just released stardict 3.0 this week, which has a lot of cool new features including support for net dictionaries/translation :-) 00:08:37 	paragn: cool :) 00:08:52 	well we are over time now... 00:09:08 	anyone have anything else to ask or talk about? 00:09:33 <|DrJef|>	juhp, your the last session for today.. if you want to keep using teh channel you can 00:09:47 	:) 00:10:31 	oh I mentioned something about matchbox-keyboard in the agenda 00:12:32 	I was playing with it yesterday and it looks quite nice - though it needs more configurability and i18n support 00:13:18 	onscreen keyboard is important for India and other areas where many users are not comfortable with using a conventional keyboard 00:13:51 	it would be interesting to integrate it better with scim and/or m17n 00:14:03 	yes 00:14:54 	juhp: how's it better comparing with the existing onscreen keyboard apps? 00:15:29 	tagoh3: hmm good question - well I am not sure - I haven't tried that many 00:15:58 	aha 00:16:03 	at least for most users it seems more usable than gok say 00:16:24 	tagoh3: do you have any good ones in mind? :) 00:17:38 	juhp: no, not particular. I'm just interested in the feature differences. 00:17:44 	right 00:18:43 	anyway if anyone is interested i put srpms up at http://petersen.fedorapeople.org/matchbox/ 00:19:03 	I will probably submit them to fedora later... 00:19:30 	okay well maybe that is enough for today :) 00:20:04 	thanks to everyone who could join us and for contributing to the discussion :-) 00:21:01 	appreciate that 00:21:06 	juhp, thanks 00:21:25 	ok - let's close the session here