Copyright (C) 1995 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved by the Foundation.
This manual is still in DRAFT state. Some sections are still empty, or almost. We keep merging material from other sources (essentially email folders) while the proper integration of this material is delayed.
In this manual, we use he when speaking of the programmer or
maintainer, she when speaking of the translator, and they
when speaking of the installers or end users of the translated program.
This is only a convenience for clarifying the documentation. It is
absolutely not meant to imply that some roles are more appropriate
to males or females. Besides, as you might guess, GNU gettext
is meant to be useful for people using computers, whatever their sex,
race, religion or nationality!
This chapter explains what are the goals seeked by the mere existence
of GNU gettext. Then, it explains a few wide concepts around
Native Language Support, and situates message translation in regard
to other aspects of national and cultural variance, as applicable
to programs. It also surveys what are those files used to convey
translations. It explains how the various tools interrelate in the
initial generation for these files, and later, how the maintenance
cycle usually operate.
Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.