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       <TITLE>GNU gettext utilities - 14  Concluding Remarks</TITLE>
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       <H1><A NAME="SEC279" HREF="gettext_toc.html#TOC279">14  Concluding Remarks</A></H1>
       <P>
       We would like to conclude this GNU <CODE>gettext</CODE> manual by presenting
       an history of the Translation Project so far.  We finally give
       a few pointers for those who want to do further research or readings
       about Native Language Support matters.
       </P>
       <H2><A NAME="SEC280" HREF="gettext_toc.html#TOC280">14.1  History of GNU <CODE>gettext</CODE></A></H2>
       <P>
       <A NAME="IDX1129"></A>
       </P>
       <P>
       Internationalization concerns and algorithms have been informally
       and casually discussed for years in GNU, sometimes around GNU
       <CODE>libc</CODE>, maybe around the incoming <CODE>Hurd</CODE>, or otherwise
       (nobody clearly remembers).  And even then, when the work started for
       real, this was somewhat independently of these previous discussions.
       </P>
       <P>
       This all began in July 1994, when Patrick D'Cruze had the idea and
       initiative of internationalizing version 3.9.2 of GNU <CODE>fileutils</CODE>.
       He then asked Jim Meyering, the maintainer, how to get those changes
       folded into an official release.  That first draft was full of
       <CODE>#ifdef</CODE>s and somewhat disconcerting, and Jim wanted to find
       nicer ways.  Patrick and Jim shared some tries and experimentations
       in this area.  Then, feeling that this might eventually have a deeper
       impact on GNU, Jim wanted to know what standards were, and contacted
       Richard Stallman, who very quickly and verbally described an overall
       design for what was meant to become <CODE>glocale</CODE>, at that time.
       </P>
       <P>
       Jim implemented <CODE>glocale</CODE> and got a lot of exhausting feedback
       from Patrick and Richard, of course, but also from Mitchum DSouza
       (who wrote a <CODE>catgets</CODE>-like package), Roland McGrath, maybe David
       MacKenzie, Fran&ccedil;ois Pinard, and Paul Eggert, all pushing and
       pulling in various directions, not always compatible, to the extent
       that after a couple of test releases, <CODE>glocale</CODE> was torn apart.
       In particular, Paul Eggert -- always keeping an eye on developments
       in Solaris -- advocated the use of the <CODE>gettext</CODE> API over
       <CODE>glocale</CODE>'s <CODE>catgets</CODE>-based API.
       </P>
       <P>
       While Jim took some distance and time and became dad for a second
       time, Roland wanted to get GNU <CODE>libc</CODE> internationalized, and
       got Ulrich Drepper involved in that project.  Instead of starting
       from <CODE>glocale</CODE>, Ulrich rewrote something from scratch, but
       more conformant to the set of guidelines who emerged out of the
       <CODE>glocale</CODE> effort.  Then, Ulrich got people from the previous
       forum to involve themselves into this new project, and the switch
       from <CODE>glocale</CODE> to what was first named <CODE>msgutils</CODE>, renamed
       <CODE>nlsutils</CODE>, and later <CODE>gettext</CODE>, became officially accepted
       by Richard in May 1995 or so.
       </P>
       <P>
       Let's summarize by saying that Ulrich Drepper wrote GNU <CODE>gettext</CODE>
       in April 1995.  The first official release of the package, including
       PO mode, occurred in July 1995, and was numbered 0.7.  Other people
       contributed to the effort by providing a discussion forum around
       Ulrich, writing little pieces of code, or testing.  These are quoted
       in the <CODE>THANKS</CODE> file which comes with the GNU <CODE>gettext</CODE>
       distribution.
       </P>
       <P>
       While this was being done, Fran&ccedil;ois adapted half a dozen of
       GNU packages to <CODE>glocale</CODE> first, then later to <CODE>gettext</CODE>,
       putting them in pretest, so providing along the way an effective
       user environment for fine tuning the evolving tools.  He also took
       the responsibility of organizing and coordinating the Translation
       Project.  After nearly a year of informal exchanges between people from
       many countries, translator teams started to exist in May 1995, through
       the creation and support by Patrick D'Cruze of twenty unmoderated
       mailing lists for that many native languages, and two moderated
       lists: one for reaching all teams at once, the other for reaching
       all willing maintainers of internationalized free software packages.
       </P>
       <P>
       Fran&ccedil;ois also wrote PO mode in June 1995 with the collaboration
       of Greg McGary, as a kind of contribution to Ulrich's package.
       He also gave a hand with the GNU <CODE>gettext</CODE> Texinfo manual.
       </P>
       <P>
       In 1997, Ulrich Drepper released the GNU libc 2.0, which included the
       <CODE>gettext</CODE>, <CODE>textdomain</CODE> and <CODE>bindtextdomain</CODE> functions.
       </P>
       <P>
       In 2000, Ulrich Drepper added plural form handling (the <CODE>ngettext</CODE>
       function) to GNU libc.  Later, in 2001, he released GNU libc 2.2.x,
       which is the first free C library with full internationalization support.
       </P>
       <P>
       Ulrich being quite busy in his role of General Maintainer of GNU libc,
       he handed over the GNU <CODE>gettext</CODE> maintenance to Bruno Haible in
 .  Bruno added the plural form handling to the tools as well, added
       support for UTF-8 and CJK locales, and wrote a few new tools for
       manipulating PO files.
       </P>
       <H2><A NAME="SEC281" HREF="gettext_toc.html#TOC281">14.2  Related Readings</A></H2>
       <P>
       <A NAME="IDX1130"></A>
       <A NAME="IDX1131"></A>
       </P>
       <P>
       Eugene H. Dorr (<TT>`dorre@well.com&acute;</TT>) maintains an interesting
       bibliography on internationalization matters, called
       <CITE>Internationalization Reference List</CITE>, which is available as:
       <PRE>
       ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/examples/nutshell/ujip/doc/i18n-books.txt
       </PRE>
       <P>
       Michael Gschwind (<TT>`mike@vlsivie.tuwien.ac.at&acute;</TT>) maintains a
       Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) list, entitled <CITE>Programming for
       Internationalisation</CITE>.  This FAQ discusses writing programs which
       can handle different language conventions, character sets, etc.;
       and is applicable to all character set encodings, with particular
       emphasis on ISO 8859-1.  It is regularly published in Usenet
       groups <TT>`comp.unix.questions&acute;</TT>, <TT>`comp.std.internat&acute;</TT>,
       <TT>`comp.software.international&acute;</TT>, <TT>`comp.lang.c&acute;</TT>,
       <TT>`comp.windows.x&acute;</TT>, <TT>`comp.std.c&acute;</TT>, <TT>`comp.answers&acute;</TT>
       and <TT>`news.answers&acute;</TT>.  The home location of this document is:
       <PRE>
       ftp://ftp.vlsivie.tuwien.ac.at/pub/8bit/ISO-programming
       </PRE>
       <P>
       Patrick D'Cruze (<TT>`pdcruze@li.org&acute;</TT>) wrote a tutorial about NLS
       matters, and Jochen Hein (<TT>`Hein@student.tu-clausthal.de&acute;</TT>) took
       over the responsibility of maintaining it.  It may be found as:
       <PRE>
       ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/utils/nls/catalogs/Incoming/...
            ...locale-tutorial-0.8.txt.gz
       </PRE>
       <P>
       This site is mirrored in:
       <PRE>
       ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/linux/sunsite/
       </PRE>
       <P>
       A French version of the same tutorial should be findable at:
       <PRE>
       ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/linux/french/docs/
       </PRE>
       <P>
       together with French translations of many Linux-related documents.
       </P>
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