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

On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 11:00:33PM +0100, Axel Hecht wrote:
> 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.

I think you're overthinking this. en-US would stay in m-c, and built by
default, but it would be a system addon instead of intermixed with other
things. Then repacks become building a system addon for a different
language, and replacing the en-US addon with it.

Mike