Described behavior was introduced in glibc-locales-2.2.5-alt5 (20.05.2002) and
was mentioned in the %changelog entry for that release.

There is a macro switch, langify, which controls (at glibc build time) whether
glibc-locales subpackage will be built langified or not.
The default is to enable langify.

AWAIR the reason for this default was to save disk space.

I doubt it is useful anywhere except the embedded device. Maybe it should be 
disabled by default?

2ktirf: please note.

I agree :) Removing locales forever, even during updates and glibc-locales
reinstalls, just because I used to choose "English" as an *installation*
language in the installer is just plain wrong. If we can't handle full-blown
locales packages, let's reinvent the whee^W^WDebian runtime locale generation
mechanism and propose the users to choose the locales they'd like to have compiled.

I agree with dottedmag@. Given that ALT Linux has some installation prospects in
regions with non-Russian, non-English locales, I believe we have to install all
translated messages. Btw, how much space is saved thanks to langify? (estimated,
if there are no actual data)

(In reply to comment #4)
> I agree with dottedmag@. Given that ALT Linux has some installation prospects in
> regions with non-Russian, non-English locales, I believe we have to install all
> translated messages.

Nobody forces us to activate %_install_langs in /etc/rpm/macros file during OS
installation.

> Btw, how much space is saved thanks to langify? (estimated,
> if there are no actual data)

$ du -hsc /usr/lib64/locale/{en,ru}_* |fgrep total
4.7M    total
$ du -hs /usr/lib64/locale
64M     /usr/lib64/locale

So, is there any reason to install all locales, but at the same time install
only russian translations?
If yes, then there is a reason to disable langify in glibc-locales.
If no, then there is a reason to disable %_install_langs in installer.

Only Russian translations are not suitable. I have just received a request about
Spanish localization in ALT Linux %-)

> So, is there any reason to install all locales, but at the 
same time install only russian translations?

Yes. If l10n is stripped then user gets English messages, which 
is ok (for some value of ok). If locales are stripped then user 
gets broken system which can't handle his LC_CTYPE/LC_COLLATE/LC_
WHATEVER (especially if user logs in using ssh).

Do 60M matter that much nowadays?

(In reply to comment #8)
> Do 60M matter that much nowadays?

translations take less disk space than locales.

Let's disable %_install_langs in installer then.

(In reply to comment #9)
> (In reply to comment #8)
> > Do 60M matter that much nowadays?
> 
> translations take less disk space than locales.
Oh. That's a surprise to me. Live and learn %-)

(In reply to comment #10)
> Let's disable %_install_langs in installer then.

I agree, that was more of a bug in the installer than in glibc-locales.

OK, I will disable %__rpm_install_langs in the next alterator-sysconfig release.

Was fixed in alterator-sysconfig-0.5-alt2

*** Bug 14706 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***