Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: gettext

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 omitted 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).

The optimal solution is to fix msgfmt so that it omits those unneeded
messages.

For a detailed description of the case see
http://blogs.gnome.org/simos/2007/07/23/important-mo-file-optimisation-for-en_-locales-and-partly-others/

I am not sure if the developers of gettext would be ok to change the default
behaviour of msgfmt. If not (therefore, some extra parameter has to be
specified), then the build system should accommodate for this parameter.

An alternative solution would be to assign the task to the distributions 
(Ubuntu) to
optimise the MO files. In any case, this issue influences Ubuntu as a platform
because less memory and disk space will be used, especially for the mobile
platforms.

** Affects: gettext (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

-- 
MO files not optimised enough for en_GB, en_CA, etc, partially for others
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/127709
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