Hello, On Jun 21 16:29 Bart Whiteley wrote:
Pascal Bleser wrote:
Klaus Kaempf wrote:
* Lukas Ocilka
[Jun 19. 2007 16:23]: Those from my screen-shot are only on-line repositories :)
I'm afraid that YaST/ZMD/Libzypp/Whatever haven't decided which term we are going to use yet (I mean - our managers). The term 'repository' is used internally in order to stop the confusion esp. with source packages. Feedback from the community also indicates that 'repository' is a preferred term.
It's even much simpler than that: "repository" is the only correct technical term. Period.
Rebecca, just have a look at how other Linux distributions have been calling those things since many years.
I often have to translate "installation sources" as "repository" to new SUSE users (well at least people who have used other distros), sort of: A: add it to "installation sources" in yast B: to .. what ? A: "installation sources" = "repositories" B: ah, ok, repository
Really, it's "repository", and anything else is confusing.
I have to agree with Pascal here. Not only have other distros been using the term "repository" for years, but it is part of published standards.
http://www.dmtf.org/standards/published_documents/DSP1023.pdf
"Note: Representing Available Software is different from representing a software repository, which would be modeled in a different way and specializes in showing the software that is available to all the systems that can access the repository. See the Software Repository Profile (DSP1032)."
Unfortunately DSP1032 seems to not be published yet.
The real problem is not what the most correct technical term is. The real problem is how to make it clear to all users (i.e. experienced and unexperienced users) what is meant (i.e. what the actual meaning - the idea - behind the term is). Usually technical terms get introduced by whoever invents the idea behind it. On the one hand we all would like to have unique technical terms but on the other hand (i.e. in reality) we must somehow deal with multiple technical terms for the same idea behind it because often there is more than one inventor of the idea (and often different inventors use intentionally different terms for the same idea to differentiate between each other). Of course we (i.e. Novell/Suse) also invent such terms. Unfortunately it seems that we also do not always accept existing technical terms which had been introduced by whoever invented the idea behind it but instead we use our own terms. Of coursee there have been reasons at the time in the past when it happened and now we must somehow deal with the situation. I know that this doesn't help to solve the current problem. But it should indicate that it might be totally impossible to get unique technical terms and then we may simply have to accept multiple technical terms for the same idea. But then we should at least aviod to add even more confusion if we created our own new technical term for an existing idea. A suggestion to deal with multiple technical terms: If there are multiple technical terms for the same idea, choose the technical term which is easiest to understand by an unexperienced user. For example I run into a long discussion with our translators regarding "backend" in SANE. Furthermore I had ugly help texts in YaST which tried to explain what "backend" means. I myself was so used to use "backend" that my mind was somehow blocked to see that "backend" is just the technical term of the SANE project for what the unexperienced user would call a "driver" ("the piece of software which does the hardware-dependent stuff"). I changed "backend" to "driver" in all texts in YaST which are visible for the user and the problem was immediately solved for both our translators and for all users because the experienced user also understands what "driver" means. Note that I wrote "choose" - i.e. do not create a new term but choose from the existing technical terms. Note that I wrote "by an unexperienced user" - i.e. if one technical term is easier to understand by unexperienced users (in particular if a term is already known by unexperienced users), choose this one even if another technical term is more correct. For example prefer "firewall" over "package filter" even if the "firewall" is actually only a "package filter". Note that I wrote "technical term" - i.e. do not replace a technical term by a non-technical platitude and do not replace a meaningful technical term by a too simple technical word. For example "printer description file" is unfortunately often replaced by "driver" and users are confused because installing such a kind of "driver" does not make their printer work (because a "driver" does the hardware-dependent stuff but a "printer description file" only describes it). Kind Regards Johannes Meixner -- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstrasse 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany AG Nuernberg, HRB 16746, GF: Markus Rex -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org