At the beginning, we would have two sets of PO files:
- those converted from Alain's work
- those in Debian
Then, file by file, both "parties" would need to examine the diff and do what's needed to reduce it to zero, if possible.
Would the Debian folk have the time to take on part, maybe even most, of that work?
Hard to say that in advance because it needs to estimate the amount of time that people I have no "control" over can put in this...:-)
I think we certainly could put some time on this, for sure.
And I can't resist asking: which of these options could each side consider as viable?
I think that b) is the most reasonable, indeed. I fully understand that, saying so, we're saying "switch to PO" to Alain....:-)
There is one more piece in all of this: even if the teams can combine their efforts, can they keep up with me. You are all volunteers (I assume); currently I'm working full time on man-pages. Alain estimates that each of my weekly releases typically requires two days of translation work. Obviously, that is unsustainable for him. But equally obviously, if it is unsustainable for you all when sharing the work as a team, then there's little point in encouraging Alain to go through the work of switching to new tools.
Which is maybe another argument for a gettext+po4a-based translation infrastructure....
Anything based on direct changes in English manpages requires a *constant* commitment. Otherwise, I guess that, at some moment, one might have hard times coping back with the upstream changes.
With a gettext-based system and, assuming that we can achieve an i18n system that allows *you* to easily regenerate PO files for every change you do (or on a daily basis or so) and then offer them for translation on an easy-to-access system (such as Pootle), when the translation teams can't cope with your changes, the PO file(s) statistics will just decrease....but the reconciliation will be still possible....when the translator is ready again (or back from vacation, or whatever...).
Of course, that will not change the "données de base": the amount of changes you're doing is not sustainable for translators *at this very moment*. Of course, I suspect you'll not keep the same rhythm during years so, at some moment, translators will be again able to cope back with changes and re-update.
As a technical start (mostly for people who are reading this thread and didn't talk yet because they're not on holidays like me....or doing their paid work like you), do you currently work in a VCS system, ie something that could be checked out by a motivated person so that (s)he can propose a patch to switch the manpages build system to po4a?
That could be used as a live demo of the system I'm thinking about, indeed:
You --> changes in English --> regenerate PO files --> commit to VCS --> Debian Pootle
Translators --> commit to Pootle --> Pootle commits to VCS