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This chapter explains the goals sought in the creation
of GNU gettext and the free Translation Project.
Then, it explains a few broad concepts around
Native Language Support, and positions message translation with regard
to other aspects of national and cultural variance, as they apply
to programs. It also surveys those files used to convey the
translations. It explains how the various tools interact in the
initial generation of these files, and later, how the maintenance
cycle should usually operate.
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!
Please submit suggestions and corrections
bug-gettext@gnu.org.
Please include the manual’s edition number and update date in your messages.