The maintainer of a package has many responsibilities. One of them is ensuring that the package will install easily on many platforms, and that the magic we described earlier (see section The User's View) will work for installers and end users.
Of course, there are many possible ways by which GNU gettext
might be integrated in a distribution, and this chapter does not cover
them in all generality. Instead, it details one possible approach
which is especially adequate for many GNU distributions, because
GNU gettext is purposely for helping the internationalization
of the whole GNU project. So, the maintainer's view presented here
presumes that the package already has a `configure.in' file and
uses Autoconf.
Nevertheless, GNU gettext may surely be useful for non-GNU
packages, but the maintainers of such packages might have to show
imagination and initiative in organizing their distributions so
gettext work for them in all situations. There are surely
many, out there.
Even if gettext methods are now stabilizing, slight adjustments
might be needed between successive gettext versions, so you
should ideally revise this chapter in subsequent releases, looking
for changes.
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