|
|
|
|
@ -83,7 +83,7 @@
|
|
|
|
|
<p><b>In the beginning...</b></p>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>For years Pine was THE program used to read email on a Unix system. The Pico text editor is the portion of the program one would use to compose his or her mail messages. Many beginners to Unix flocked to Pico and Pine because of their well organized, easy to use interfaces. With the proliferation of GNU/Linux in the mid to late 90's, many University students became intimately familiar with the strengths (and weaknesses) of Pine and Pico.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
<p><b>Then came Debian...</b></p>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>The <a href="http://www.debian.org/">Debian GNU/Linux</a> distribution, known for its strict standards in distributing truly "free" software (i.e. software with no restrictions on redistribution), would not include a binary package for Pine or Pico. Many people had a serious dilemma: they loved these programs, but the versions available at the time were not truly free software in the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html">GNU</a> sense of the word.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>The <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian GNU/Linux</a> distribution, known for its strict standards in distributing truly "free" software (i.e. software with no restrictions on redistribution), would not include a binary package for Pine or Pico. Many people had a serious dilemma: they loved these programs, but the versions available at the time were not truly free software in the <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html">GNU</a> sense of the word.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
<p><b>The event...</b></p>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>It was in late 1999 when Chris Allegretta (our hero) was yet again complaining to himself about the less-than-perfect license Pico was distributed under, the 1000 makefiles that came with it and how just a few small improvements could make it the Best Editor in the World (TM). Having been a convert from Slackware to Debian, he missed having a simple binary package that included Pine and Pico, and had grown tired of downloading them himself.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Finally something snapped inside and Chris coded and hacked like a madman for many hours straight one weekend to make a (barely usable) Pico clone, at the time called TIP (Tip Isn't Pico). The program could not be invoked without a filename, could not save files, had no help text display, spell checker, and so forth. But over time it improved, and with the help of a few great coders it matured to the (hopefully) stable state it is in today.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
@ -114,9 +114,9 @@
|
|
|
|
|
<h3><a name="2.3"></a>2.3. Deb packages (Debian and derivatives):</h3>
|
|
|
|
|
<blockquote><p>Debian users can check out the current nano packages for:</p>
|
|
|
|
|
<ul>
|
|
|
|
|
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/stable/editors/nano">stable</a></li>
|
|
|
|
|
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/testing/editors/nano">testing</a></li>
|
|
|
|
|
<li><a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/nano">unstable</a></li>
|
|
|
|
|
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/stable/editors/nano">stable</a></li>
|
|
|
|
|
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/testing/editors/nano">testing</a></li>
|
|
|
|
|
<li><a href="https://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/nano">unstable</a></li>
|
|
|
|
|
</ul>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>You can also have a look at the <a href="ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/n/nano/">Package Pool</a> to see all the available binary and source packages.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
</blockquote>
|
|
|
|
|
@ -232,9 +232,9 @@
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h1><a name="5"></a>5. Internationalization</h1>
|
|
|
|
|
<h3><a name="5.1"></a>5.1. There's no translation for my language!</h3>
|
|
|
|
|
<blockquote><p>In June 2001, GNU nano entered the <a href="http://translationproject.org/html/welcome.html">Translation Project</a> and since then, translations should be managed from there.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>If there isn't a translation for your language, you could ask <a href="http://translationproject.org/team/">your language team</a> to translate nano, or better still, join that team and do it yourself. Joining a team is easy. You just need to ask the team leader to add you, and then send a <a href="http://translationproject.org/disclaim.txt">translation disclaimer to the FSF</a> (this is necessary as nano is an official GNU package, but it does <b>not</b> mean that you transfer the rights of your work to the FSF, it's just so the FSF can legally manage them).</p>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>In any case, translating nano is easy. Just grab the latest <b>nano.pot</b> file listed on <a href="http://translationproject.org/domain/nano.html">nano's page</a> at the TP, and translate each <b>msgid</b> line into your native language on the <b>msgstr</b> line. When you're done, you should send it to the TP's central PO-file repository.</p></blockquote>
|
|
|
|
|
<blockquote><p>In June 2001, GNU nano entered the <a href="https://translationproject.org/html/welcome.html">Translation Project</a> and since then, translations should be managed from there.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>If there isn't a translation for your language, you could ask <a href="https://translationproject.org/team/">your language team</a> to translate nano, or better still, join that team and do it yourself. Joining a team is easy. You just need to ask the team leader to add you, and then send a <a href="https://translationproject.org/disclaim.txt">translation disclaimer to the FSF</a> (this is necessary as nano is an official GNU package, but it does <b>not</b> mean that you transfer the rights of your work to the FSF, it's just so the FSF can legally manage them).</p>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>In any case, translating nano is easy. Just grab the latest <b>nano.pot</b> file listed on <a href="https://translationproject.org/domain/nano.html">nano's page</a> at the TP, and translate each <b>msgid</b> line into your native language on the <b>msgstr</b> line. When you're done, you should send it to the TP's central PO-file repository.</p></blockquote>
|
|
|
|
|
<h3><a name="5.2"></a>5.2. I don't like the translation for <x> in my language. How can I fix it?</h3>
|
|
|
|
|
<blockquote><p>The best way is to send an e-mail with your suggested corrections to the team's mailing list. The address is mentioned in the <code>Language-Team:</code> field in the relevant PO file. The team leader or the assigned translator can then make the changes reach the nano-devel list.</p></blockquote>
|
|
|
|
|
<h3><a name="5.3"></a>5.3. What is the status of Unicode support?</h3>
|
|
|
|
|
@ -248,7 +248,7 @@
|
|
|
|
|
<blockquote><p>Again, check out the <a href="https://nano-editor.org/">nano homepage</a> for a good summary of reasons. It really is a matter of personal preference as to which editor you should use. If you're the type of person who likes using the original version of a program, then Pico is the editor for you. If you don't mind sacrificing mailer integration with Pine, and are looking for a few more features, as well as a 'better' license in terms of adding your own changes, nano is the way to go.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Note that the last of these no longer applies to the new version of Pine, <a href="http://www.washington.edu/alpine/">Alpine</a>, which is under the Apache License, version 2.0.</p></blockquote>
|
|
|
|
|
<h3><a name="6.3"></a>6.3. What is so bad about the older Pine license?</h3>
|
|
|
|
|
<blockquote><p>The U of W license for older versions of Pine and Pico is not considered truly Free Software according to both the Free Software Foundation and the <a href="http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines">Debian Free Software Guidelines</a>. The main problem regards the limitations on distributing derived works: according to UW, you can distribute their software, and you can modify it, but you can not do both, i.e. distribute modified binaries.</p></blockquote>
|
|
|
|
|
<blockquote><p>The U of W license for older versions of Pine and Pico is not considered truly Free Software according to both the Free Software Foundation and the <a href="https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines">Debian Free Software Guidelines</a>. The main problem regards the limitations on distributing derived works: according to UW, you can distribute their software, and you can modify it, but you can not do both, i.e. distribute modified binaries.</p></blockquote>
|
|
|
|
|
<h3><a name="6.4"></a>6.4. Okay, well, what mail program should I use then?</h3>
|
|
|
|
|
<blockquote><p>If you are looking to use a Free Software program similar to Pine, and Emacs is not your thing, you should definitely take a look at <a href="http://www.mutt.org/">mutt</a>. It is a full-screen, console based mail program that actually has a lot more flexibility than Pine, but has a keymap included in the distribution that allows you to use the same keystrokes as Pine would to send and receive mail. It's also under the GNU General Public License, version 2.0.</p>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>Of course, due to the license change you can now use the <a href="http://www.washington.edu/alpine/">Alpine distribution</a> of PINE as it is now considered Free Software, but you would be sacrificing many of nano's features to do so.</p></blockquote>
|
|
|
|
|
@ -256,10 +256,10 @@
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h1><a name="7"></a>7. Miscellaneous</h1>
|
|
|
|
|
<h3><a name="7.1"></a>7.1. Where can I ask questions or send suggestions?</h3>
|
|
|
|
|
<blockquote><p>There are three mailing lists for nano hosted at <a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/">Savannah</a>: info-nano, help-nano and nano-devel. info-nano is a very low traffic list where new versions of nano are announced (surprise!). help-nano is for getting help with the editor without needing to hear all of the development issues surrounding it. nano-devel is a normally low, sometimes high traffic list for discussing the present and future development of nano. Here are links to where you can sign up for a given list:</p>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>info-nano - <a href="http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-nano/">http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-nano/</a><br>
|
|
|
|
|
help-nano - <a href="http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-nano/">http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-nano/</a><br>
|
|
|
|
|
nano-devel - <a href="http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nano-devel/">http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nano-devel/</a></p></blockquote>
|
|
|
|
|
<blockquote><p>There are three mailing lists for nano hosted at <a href="https://savannah.gnu.org/">Savannah</a>: info-nano, help-nano and nano-devel. info-nano is a very low traffic list where new versions of nano are announced (surprise!). help-nano is for getting help with the editor without needing to hear all of the development issues surrounding it. nano-devel is a normally low, sometimes high traffic list for discussing the present and future development of nano. Here are links to where you can sign up for a given list:</p>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>info-nano - <a href="https://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-nano/">https://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-nano/</a><br>
|
|
|
|
|
help-nano - <a href="https://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-nano/">https://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-nano/</a><br>
|
|
|
|
|
nano-devel - <a href="https://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nano-devel/">https://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nano-devel/</a></p></blockquote>
|
|
|
|
|
<h3><a name="7.2"></a>7.3. How do I submit a bug report or patch?</h3>
|
|
|
|
|
<blockquote>
|
|
|
|
|
<p>The best way to submit bugs is through the <a href="https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=nano">Savannah bug tracker</a>, as you can check whether the bug you are reporting has already been submitted, and it makes it easier for the maintainers to keep track of them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Benno Schulenberg