ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Rodney Dawes <rodney.dawes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 2014-04-17 at 09:09 -0400, Kyle Nitzsche wrote:
> Just noting that our traditional deb based lang packs approach (for core stuff)
> in the context of the monolithic system image enables:
> * producing stock Ubuntu devices with as wide a set of languages as is wanted
> * while also allowing custom phones/tablets to trim that down to the hand picked
> languages they want and thereby freeing disk space

While the debs do allow this, it is only convenience to us that they are
debs we are doing it with. There are other ways we could enable this,
without debs, but it requires work. The debs are convenient right now,
but when requirements change and we need to provide translations updates
without upgrading the whole image, they will not be so convenient.

> If we do not have the ability to add translations for core stuff (not including
> click pkgs) beyond that baked into the image, then the pressure will be to add
> as many languages into the stock image as possible. In my experience, OEMs are
> often quite clear that their product does not need all those languages and they
> choose to delete them for the disk space. Lang packs enable these options
> without much fuss, it seems to me.

The main issue with the current debs system is that we are shipping a
lot of translations we don't actually need to be on the system, because
our language pack debs are built from the requirements of the full
Ubuntu ISO, and not the phone image. So we are already hitting a
conflict of interest between the two.

> I look forward to hearing about how/whether we intend to support adding
> translations for core stuff beyond that provided in the system image when it is
> built. If we can do that, this part of the discussion is moot.

I would hope we intend to support that. We've been supporting it for 10
years in Ubuntu. I don't see why we'd stop supporting it just because
some OEMs want to ship images with only a subset of translations. If we
don't support it, it means some people will never be able to use an
Ubuntu phone, without building their own custom images and reflashing a
device. I sure hope that isn't how we intend to continue supporting it.