Suggestion: No more language packs for macOS as they are fundamentally broken

Tor Lillqvist tml at iki.fi
Thu May 21 10:35:47 UTC 2020


It has long been known that the way language packs work, adding new files
into an existing LibreOffice app bundle, is fundamentally wrong on macOS.
In the current and previous macOS versions it is even more wrong, as
installing a language pack often actively prevents LibreOffice from working.

I have attempted to change how language packs work for some weeks now
(intermixed with other work) by trying a couple of approaches to make the
code look for the things that language packs install in more places than
where it currently does. But it is quite complicated.

A much easier solution would be for TDF to simply stop building and
distributing language packs for macOS.

Instead, my suggestion is that what should be distributed is:

   - A build with a multitude of UI languages. Not all, but those with
   "good enough" coverage. This build would also contain all dictionaries
   (even for languages for which the UI is not included)
   - A number of other builds each with some geographic subset of the rest
   of the UI languages, plus English (and, perhaps French, Russian, and other
   languages that are commonly known as non-native languages in the geographic
   area in question). Also in these builds all dictionaries would be included.

As the macOS build of LibreOffice currently seems to show help in the
browser from the TDF website anyway, no help should be included in any
build. When the problem that prevents help included in the app bundle from
being shown in the browser has been fixed, that would need to be
reconsidered.

If somebody needs LibreOffice with UI in languages that are in separate
builds, they would need to install two copies of LibreOffice.

Please, if you don't use macOS and have nothing constructive to say,
suppress any knee-jerk reaction.

--tml
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