GNU gettext Reaches Version 1.0 After 30 Years (phoronix.com)
(Friday January 30, 2026 @10:30PM (BeauHD)
from the decades-in-the-making dept.)
- Reference: 0180703624
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/01/30/2154235/gnu-gettext-reaches-version-10-after-30-years
- Source link: https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-gettext-1.0
After [1]more than 30 years of development, GNU gettext finally " [2]crossed the symbolic 'v1.0' milestone ," according to Phoronix's Michael Larabel. "GNU gettext 1.0 brings PO file handling improvements, a new 'po-fetch' program to fetch translated PO files from a translation project's site on the Internet, new 'msgpre' and 'spit' pre-translation programs, and Ocaml and Rust programming language improvements." From the report:
> With this v1.0 release in 2026, the "msgpre" and "spit" programs do involve.... Large Language Models (LLMs) in the era of AI: "Two new programs, 'msgpre' and 'spit', are provided, that implement machine translation through a locally installed Large Language Model (LLM). 'msgpre' applies to an entire PO file, 'spit' to a single message."
>
> And when dealing with LLMs, added [3]documentation warns users to look out for the licensing of the LLM in the spirit of free software. More details on the GNU gettext 1.0 changes via the [4]NEWS file . GNU gettext 1.0 can be downloaded from [5]GNU.org .
[1] https://bsd.slashdot.org/story/03/08/25/1139256/heads-up-gettext-port-update-on-freebsd
[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-gettext-1.0
[3] https://gitweb.git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gettext.git;a=blobdiff;f=gettext-tools/doc/gettext.texi;h=f2f09586180884ca966e1f3e4e841dc5cb62753d;hp=f8913e5c4d5f3c33847633a5d7ca2ce536f6c0df;hb=c979c72860cbfaba7d2e745b8bf9dcf27f7f030f;hpb=7c7ff10dcf979358e32b0c0da72fa4f00d45aab5
[4] https://gitweb.git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gettext.git;a=blob;f=NEWS;h=565fc8ec95e591a810be2cef179acd130ba8f9c4;hb=HEAD
[5] https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/
> With this v1.0 release in 2026, the "msgpre" and "spit" programs do involve.... Large Language Models (LLMs) in the era of AI: "Two new programs, 'msgpre' and 'spit', are provided, that implement machine translation through a locally installed Large Language Model (LLM). 'msgpre' applies to an entire PO file, 'spit' to a single message."
>
> And when dealing with LLMs, added [3]documentation warns users to look out for the licensing of the LLM in the spirit of free software. More details on the GNU gettext 1.0 changes via the [4]NEWS file . GNU gettext 1.0 can be downloaded from [5]GNU.org .
[1] https://bsd.slashdot.org/story/03/08/25/1139256/heads-up-gettext-port-update-on-freebsd
[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-gettext-1.0
[3] https://gitweb.git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gettext.git;a=blobdiff;f=gettext-tools/doc/gettext.texi;h=f2f09586180884ca966e1f3e4e841dc5cb62753d;hp=f8913e5c4d5f3c33847633a5d7ca2ce536f6c0df;hb=c979c72860cbfaba7d2e745b8bf9dcf27f7f030f;hpb=7c7ff10dcf979358e32b0c0da72fa4f00d45aab5
[4] https://gitweb.git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gettext.git;a=blob;f=NEWS;h=565fc8ec95e591a810be2cef179acd130ba8f9c4;hb=HEAD
[5] https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/
Re: (Score:3)
by PPH ( 736903 )
> produce multi-lingual messages
The diacritics of which will crash Slashdot.
Re: What's it do? (Score:3)
by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 )
If a thought can't be expressed in the king's english with ascii characters, it isn't really a thought. More of a primitive grunt.
At some point in the distant future, Man will cease to learn language. A custom LLM will just translate between everyone's infantile babbling.
Re: (Score:2)
by Fly Swatter ( 30498 )
Boring? Don't worry, there is an emoji for that. As for Slashdot, we already have the universal ASCII faces ( -_-) whatever.
_("Finally!") (Score:3)
by Fly Swatter ( 30498 )
# insert fantastic comment, don't forget to internationalize your text
A number is just a number (Score:2)
by CommunityMember ( 6662188 )
For some, a semantic version of 1.x is significant, but it mostly just does not matter for a project like gettext.
No GNU/LLM? (Score:1)
I just wish RMS was technical enough to release a GNU/LLM.