Re: project-id misfeatured

[Bruno Haible]

Hello Werner,

Werner Koch wrote on 2007-08-16:
>       * pt_BR.po, es.po: Remove the "GNU" from the project ID.  That
>       stupid msginit uses a script project-id to retrieve a new project
>       id.  Instead of using what it founds out, it tries to put "GNU"
>       before the id if _any_ file in the current directory has a string
>       "GNU <package_name>".  As address@hidden is build automagically this
>       package name mangling breaks make distcheck as it tries to rebuild
>       the po file with the "correct" name.  The upshot is never to use
>       GNU in your po directory.
> 
> It took my quite some time to figure out what was going on here while
> doing a GnuPG release.

I'm sorry that it costed you time. This is the first time this problem is
reported.

> Please get rid of this misfeatures.

For gettext 0.16.2 (not yet released) the following changes are implemented:

  - The Project-Id is already filled in into the .pot file. Its value still
    consists of a package name, version number and optional "GNU" prefix.
    The package name and version number now come directly from configure.ac.
    The "GNU" prefix still comes from grepping the srcdir for
    "GNU <package_name>", because I don't know of a better way to determine
    whether a package is GNU or not.

  - During msginit, the Project-Id is copied from the POT file. Therefore
    there is no risk any more of a mismatch between the POT file and a
    generated PO file.

There is still the risk of a "make distcheck" failure, if you happen to
have a file in your srcdir that says "GNU GnuPG" but you don't distribute
that file, and no distributed file mentions "GNU GnuPG". This should be
extremely rare.

Bruno