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

[Eivind Samseth]

Sounds like a good solution, as the current method is fundamentally broken wrt code-signing, and is an extra step for users

How big would the .app bundle be? That would be the only drawback

I see the LO Vanilla build is 2.2 GB vs 0.8 GB for a single language build

This is still less than MS Office that also bundles localizations:
Word: 2.1 GB
Excel: 1.7 GB
PowerPoint: 1.6 GB

So LO would still beat the 5.3 GB in total for the competition :)

A workaround would be to offer also an English-only build for users short on disk space - Apple was very stingy on SSD size for a while, with only 128 GB on the default models...

> On 21 May 2020, at 12:35, Tor Lillqvist <tml at iki.fi> wrote:
> 
> 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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