Bug#354742: gweather: Locations.xml is huge

[Stéphane Aulery]

Simos Xenitellis summarized the response of upstream developers and why
this request is not a good idea:

When I use the term "strip", I mean similar to "man 1 strip". You
would perform a "strip" to a PO file which would remove messages when
msgid==msgstr, then compile to MO files in order to create the package.
With the LINGUAS environment variable, you specify which translations to
include or not.

I try to summarize what we have up to now,

1. The "optimization" we talk about is to strip messages when
msgid==msgstr, when compiling PO files.

2. One would (if they chose to) only perform the optimization when
building packages for their distribution. No translation files change
within GNOME.

3. The default behavior of the GNOME building tools would not change;
one would have to use some special parameter to strip MO files (either a
subset or all).

4. The distribution must declare to their users that they support a
single language at a time, (with the implicit/explicit fallback to
English (en_US)). The UI should not permit the user to set the LANGUAGE
variable to a sequence such as es:fr:de:en.

5. One would start considering all these if they have the burning need
to reduce space (for example, to fit packages on a single CDROM, or
install on some small device that space is at a premium). Or, when RAM
is really at a premium.

One would consider "stripping" translation files if *all 5 items* apply.

If we consider all this concept of "stripping" translation files is a
big no-no, then this report should close (maybe INVALID?).

If we consider that someone in the future would need to come back here,
we could leave it, marked as enhancement or something.

If there is something else I miss from this comment entry, please say so.
 
-- 
Stéphane Aulery