MO files not optimised enough (esp. en_GB, en_CA, etc)

[Simos Xenitellis <simos lists googlemail com>]

Hi All,
It is common in translation teams when a message does not need/require
translation to simply copy the "msgid" content to "msgstr". For example,

msgid "GConf"
msgstr "GConf"

This is quite common for the locales en_GB, en_CA where the vast
majority of the messages remain the same.

The problem arises from the fact that when compiling those PO files into
MO files (with "msgfmt"), the copied messages are included, contributing
to an increased size of the file on disk, and also in memory when the
application is loaded. The issue is, those copied messages could have
been ommited entirely in the MO file as the running application does not
need them (it can use the message text that is already included in the
executable).

I blogged about this at
http://blogs.gnome.org/simos/2007/07/23/important-mo-file-optimisation-for-en_-locales-and-partly-others/

I sent a bug report at the gettext bugs email address. If anyone knows
of an alternative way to get in contact with the gettext developers,
please tell me.

Simos