RFC: pt_BR vs. pt -- langpack split and fallback languages

[Arne Goetje]

Hi all,

this is a question particularly for pt_BR and pt translation teams:

Current situation:

 * Both translations, pt and pt_BR are shipped in the same language-pack.
 * The fallback setting for pt_PT is pt_PT:pt:pt_BR:en_GB:en
 * The fallback setting for pt_BR is pt_BR:pt:pt_PT

I'm going to make a language-pack split for Chinese (simplified and
tradtional) anyways. Do you want to have a language-pack split for pt
and pt_BR, too?

The language-pack split wold only make sense, if most or all msgids are
translated separately into pt and pt_BR anyways. If you rely on
fallbacks to pt or pt_BR respectively, the split won't make sense.

If we go for the langpack split, the layout would be the following:
 * language-pack-pt: contains pt and pt_PT
 * language-pack-pt-br: contains pt_BR

That also means, that if pt/pt_PT users want to keep the fallback to
pt_BR, they would need to install both language-packs.
Similar, for pt_BR users, if they want to keep the fallback to pt and
pt_PT, they would also need to install both language-packs.
In this case the language-pack split wouldn't make sense.

So, if we do the split, the fallback settings would need to be changed
to something like this:

 * Fallback settings for pt_PT: pt:en:en_US (or is en_GB preferred?)
 * Fallback settings for pt_BR: en:en_US (or is en_GB preferred? Or
something else?)

If we decide to stay with the current language-pack, do the current
fallback settings make sense, or is something else preferred?

 1. Do pt_PT users want to have a fallback to pt, pt_BR, en_GB and en
translations in that order? Or is a different fallback setting desired?

 2. Do pt_BR users want to have a fallback to pt and pt_PT in that
order? Or is a different fallback desired?


Thanks for feedback.

Cheers
Arne