> In GNOME, there is a string freeze which forbids such changes for > several weeks before the planned release. I think we have no reason for > not doing the same in Debian. If we want translated templates, we must > not change them every other day, it's as simple as that.
I agree. The GNOME model for handling l10n is pretty nice. When it comes at Debian packages, I may understand that a hard string freeze might be hard to achieve, but I at least expect maintainers to deal nicely with the changes when they need some. We (i18n crowd) provide the needed tools and any kind of possible assistance to maintainers to handle such situations. Up to now, I (and all other i18n people) relied on the maintainers intelligent handling of their packages and I must say this works pretty well.....with some exceptions. I would personnally favor a soft freeze for changes that are likely to affect packages or software localization: we could imagine allowing changes as long as they have been coordinated with the i18n "team" and prepared so that translators get a chance to update their work. This is certainly too late for etch, of course, but something that could be introduced in the release policy for lenny.
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