[AppStream] A component kind for language packs

[Matthias Klumpp]

2016-02-26 20:57 GMT+01:00 Richard Hughes <hughsient at gmail.com>:
> In Fedora we're adding support for system-wide language packs and I
> really need to represent them in the AppStream metadata to avoid
> hitting PK for lots of queries for each request in the software
> center. The idea of a language packs is that's a virtual entity that
> magically installs the right sub-package in various distro-provided
> applications and keeps them up to date. So, kinda useful.
>
> I'm thinking of using something like this as a prototype:
>
>   <component type="langpack">
>     <id>org.fedoraproject.LangPack-af</id>
>     <name>Afrikaans</name>
>   </component>
>
> But I'm not terribly happy with 'langpack' as a type. Should we be
> adding something like "lang" or "language" to the spec? I can't use
> generic as I need to handle these in a special way in the software
> center.

The type should likely be "localization", since those components could
theoretically also contain more stuff for internationalization than
just languages.
I would also suggest a "locale" tag to specify one or more locales
this package serves, as well as allowing to use the extends tag to
specify that this is internationalization for a specific software
component.
In case of "larger" language packs, we probably need a way to assign
them to desktop environments, so KDE users don't install a GNOME
language pack and vice versa.

I general, +1 from me for adding this as new component type, as it
really is a distinguishable class of software components with specific
properties which can not be handled already by generic components.
Cheers,
    Matthias

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