Re: Getting a Tier-X for localized builds. X=1

On 14/01/16 22:45, Mike Hommey wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 01:36:36PM -0500, Chris AtLee wrote:
>> I'd very much like to ship language-agnostic builds and have strings
>> delivered independently from the release process, as a system addon or
>> somesuch. That would dramatically simplify our release process!
>
> Yes, using a system addon for locale would simplify a lot of things,
> starting with repacks. And making en-US a locale like any other would
> ensure that things work properlty with langpacks. There are technical
> details to figure out to make that work if we want to go that path,
> though (as in, within gecko, iirc there are a few thing that currently
> don't work with langpacks)
>
> Mike
>

Doing this is part of a rewrite of Firefox and Gecko, basically.

That doesn't make it bad, but it makes it expensive.

The current l10n infra makes l10n infallible. Separating l10n from the 
build means that l10n might fail, and if it fails, it needs to fall back 
to something (like en-US). Which is additional IO, and thus needs to be 
async. Which violates all gecko APIs.

L10n.js/l20n.js in gaia land are way ahead of the curve, but we also 
rewrote a bunch of gaia to support runtime fallback and modern l10n apis.

And then there's the UX question about how to do installers that 
actually offer language choice that's no worse than the web.

'cause if we do per-locale installers, we just do per-locale builds, 
there's no difference in wall clock time and complexity of the system.

Let's make this part of the thread end here? It's all part of a 
different plan, and won't help us in a timeframe that's relevant to this 
thread.

Axel