That was apparently originally done for another reason :
http://www.archlinux.org/pipermail/pacman-dev/2007-May/008279.html

Anyway, I agree that localizing the build messages is not practical when you want to share them.

But on the other hand, it looks a little hackish to have makepkg unset them. Also, what if an user does want to have
the messages localized? In the current situation, the messages are localized by default if the system locale is set.
And that can be overwritten with LC_MESSAGES=C makepkg. Maybe this is not widely known, but in this case, the information
could be spread, couldn't it?

Um, why not "LC_ALL=C makepkg" if you plan to share them. Seems a little hokey to manage locale like that

You are right, I was a bit confused. In this situation, that would be more logical.

Since all makepkg users are concerned by this, what about asking on arch-general ML or something ?
To know if some users do want having localized build messages, and if they do, informing them that they
should use LC_ALL=C before sharing outputs.

I asked on IRC. slubman said he liked having the localized french output :
15:01 slubman >> keep my gcc messages in french !!
and Xilon :
15:05 Xilon >> shining: removing a feature isn't really a good idea if you can just change it temporarily
15:05 Xilon >> It's good that makepkg respects LANG

I see two situations here:
* you're reporting a bug, in which case you'd want everything in the C locale.
* you're running as normal, in which case you'd want it in your default locale.

I agree we should make a note to use LC_ALL if sharing output, and close this with "Won't Implement"

That sounds good to me. The only question left is where the note should be made.

Hrm, maybe in a NOTES section of the makepkg man page?