diff --git a/openstack-common.conf b/openstack-common.conf
index 729779c66..c75b00d49 100644
--- a/openstack-common.conf
+++ b/openstack-common.conf
@@ -3,7 +3,6 @@
 # The list of modules to copy from oslo-incubator.git
 module=excutils
 module=fixture.moxstubout
-module=gettextutils
 module=importutils
 module=jsonutils
 module=network_utils
diff --git a/oslo/messaging/_drivers/amqp.py b/oslo/messaging/_drivers/amqp.py
index 93dc1d94d..bc5f4952a 100644
--- a/oslo/messaging/_drivers/amqp.py
+++ b/oslo/messaging/_drivers/amqp.py
@@ -39,8 +39,9 @@ from oslo.config import cfg
 from oslo.messaging._drivers import common as rpc_common
 from oslo.messaging._drivers import pool
 from oslo.messaging.openstack.common import excutils
-from oslo.messaging.openstack.common.gettextutils import _  # noqa
 
+# FIXME(markmc): remove this
+_ = lambda s: s
 
 amqp_opts = [
     cfg.BoolOpt('amqp_durable_queues',
diff --git a/oslo/messaging/_drivers/common.py b/oslo/messaging/_drivers/common.py
index 6368c8d18..93316c9d7 100644
--- a/oslo/messaging/_drivers/common.py
+++ b/oslo/messaging/_drivers/common.py
@@ -25,10 +25,11 @@ import traceback
 from oslo.config import cfg
 import six
 
-from oslo.messaging.openstack.common.gettextutils import _  # noqa
 from oslo.messaging.openstack.common import importutils
 from oslo.messaging.openstack.common import jsonutils
 
+# FIXME(markmc): remove this
+_ = lambda s: s
 
 CONF = cfg.CONF
 LOG = logging.getLogger(__name__)
diff --git a/oslo/messaging/_drivers/impl_qpid.py b/oslo/messaging/_drivers/impl_qpid.py
index 3acccac59..afc76797f 100644
--- a/oslo/messaging/_drivers/impl_qpid.py
+++ b/oslo/messaging/_drivers/impl_qpid.py
@@ -28,10 +28,12 @@ from oslo.config import cfg
 from oslo.messaging._drivers.rpc import amqp as rpc_amqp
 from oslo.messaging._drivers.rpc import common as rpc_common
 from oslo.messaging.openstack.common import excutils
-from oslo.messaging.openstack.common.gettextutils import _  # noqa
 from oslo.messaging.openstack.common import importutils
 from oslo.messaging.openstack.common import jsonutils
 
+# FIXME(markmc): remove this
+_ = lambda s: s
+
 qpid_codec = importutils.try_import("qpid.codec010")
 qpid_messaging = importutils.try_import("qpid.messaging")
 qpid_exceptions = importutils.try_import("qpid.messaging.exceptions")
diff --git a/oslo/messaging/_drivers/impl_rabbit.py b/oslo/messaging/_drivers/impl_rabbit.py
index c1d658bd8..1ab593ce6 100644
--- a/oslo/messaging/_drivers/impl_rabbit.py
+++ b/oslo/messaging/_drivers/impl_rabbit.py
@@ -33,10 +33,12 @@ from oslo.config import cfg
 from oslo.messaging._drivers import amqp as rpc_amqp
 from oslo.messaging._drivers import common as rpc_common
 from oslo.messaging.openstack.common import excutils
-from oslo.messaging.openstack.common.gettextutils import _  # noqa
 from oslo.messaging.openstack.common import network_utils
 from oslo.messaging.openstack.common import sslutils
 
+# FIXME(markmc): remove this
+_ = lambda s: s
+
 kombu_opts = [
     cfg.StrOpt('kombu_ssl_version',
                default='',
diff --git a/oslo/messaging/openstack/common/gettextutils.py b/oslo/messaging/openstack/common/gettextutils.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 49755c0ce..000000000
--- a/oslo/messaging/openstack/common/gettextutils.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,259 +0,0 @@
-# vim: tabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 softtabstop=4
-
-# Copyright 2012 Red Hat, Inc.
-# All Rights Reserved.
-# Copyright 2013 IBM Corp.
-#
-#    Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may
-#    not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain
-#    a copy of the License at
-#
-#         http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
-#
-#    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
-#    distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
-#    WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
-#    License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
-#    under the License.
-
-"""
-gettext for openstack-common modules.
-
-Usual usage in an openstack.common module:
-
-    from oslo.messaging.openstack.common.gettextutils import _
-"""
-
-import copy
-import gettext
-import logging.handlers
-import os
-import re
-import UserString
-
-import six
-
-_localedir = os.environ.get('oslo.messaging'.upper() + '_LOCALEDIR')
-_t = gettext.translation('oslo.messaging', localedir=_localedir, fallback=True)
-
-
-def _(msg):
-    return _t.ugettext(msg)
-
-
-def install(domain):
-    """Install a _() function using the given translation domain.
-
-    Given a translation domain, install a _() function using gettext's
-    install() function.
-
-    The main difference from gettext.install() is that we allow
-    overriding the default localedir (e.g. /usr/share/locale) using
-    a translation-domain-specific environment variable (e.g.
-    NOVA_LOCALEDIR).
-    """
-    gettext.install(domain,
-                    localedir=os.environ.get(domain.upper() + '_LOCALEDIR'),
-                    unicode=True)
-
-
-"""
-Lazy gettext functionality.
-
-The following is an attempt to introduce a deferred way
-to do translations on messages in OpenStack. We attempt to
-override the standard _() function and % (format string) operation
-to build Message objects that can later be translated when we have
-more information. Also included is an example LogHandler that
-translates Messages to an associated locale, effectively allowing
-many logs, each with their own locale.
-"""
-
-
-def get_lazy_gettext(domain):
-    """Assemble and return a lazy gettext function for a given domain.
-
-    Factory method for a project/module to get a lazy gettext function
-    for its own translation domain (i.e. nova, glance, cinder, etc.)
-    """
-
-    def _lazy_gettext(msg):
-        """Create and return a Message object.
-
-        Message encapsulates a string so that we can translate it later when
-        needed.
-        """
-        return Message(msg, domain)
-
-    return _lazy_gettext
-
-
-class Message(UserString.UserString, object):
-    """Class used to encapsulate translatable messages."""
-    def __init__(self, msg, domain):
-        # _msg is the gettext msgid and should never change
-        self._msg = msg
-        self._left_extra_msg = ''
-        self._right_extra_msg = ''
-        self.params = None
-        self.locale = None
-        self.domain = domain
-
-    @property
-    def data(self):
-        # NOTE(mrodden): this should always resolve to a unicode string
-        # that best represents the state of the message currently
-
-        localedir = os.environ.get(self.domain.upper() + '_LOCALEDIR')
-        if self.locale:
-            lang = gettext.translation(self.domain,
-                                       localedir=localedir,
-                                       languages=[self.locale],
-                                       fallback=True)
-        else:
-            # use system locale for translations
-            lang = gettext.translation(self.domain,
-                                       localedir=localedir,
-                                       fallback=True)
-
-        full_msg = (self._left_extra_msg +
-                    lang.ugettext(self._msg) +
-                    self._right_extra_msg)
-
-        if self.params is not None:
-            full_msg = full_msg % self.params
-
-        return six.text_type(full_msg)
-
-    def _save_dictionary_parameter(self, dict_param):
-        full_msg = self.data
-        # look for %(blah) fields in string;
-        # ignore %% and deal with the
-        # case where % is first character on the line
-        keys = re.findall('(?:[^%]|^)%\((\w*)\)[a-z]', full_msg)
-
-        # if we don't find any %(blah) blocks but have a %s
-        if not keys and re.findall('(?:[^%]|^)%[a-z]', full_msg):
-            # apparently the full dictionary is the parameter
-            params = copy.deepcopy(dict_param)
-        else:
-            params = {}
-            for key in keys:
-                try:
-                    params[key] = copy.deepcopy(dict_param[key])
-                except TypeError:
-                    # cast uncopyable thing to unicode string
-                    params[key] = unicode(dict_param[key])
-
-        return params
-
-    def _save_parameters(self, other):
-        # we check for None later to see if
-        # we actually have parameters to inject,
-        # so encapsulate if our parameter is actually None
-        if other is None:
-            self.params = (other, )
-        elif isinstance(other, dict):
-            self.params = self._save_dictionary_parameter(other)
-        else:
-            # fallback to casting to unicode,
-            # this will handle the problematic python code-like
-            # objects that cannot be deep-copied
-            try:
-                self.params = copy.deepcopy(other)
-            except TypeError:
-                self.params = unicode(other)
-
-        return self
-
-    # overrides to be more string-like
-    def __unicode__(self):
-        return self.data
-
-    def __str__(self):
-        return self.data.encode('utf-8')
-
-    def __getstate__(self):
-        to_copy = ['_msg', '_right_extra_msg', '_left_extra_msg',
-                   'domain', 'params', 'locale']
-        new_dict = self.__dict__.fromkeys(to_copy)
-        for attr in to_copy:
-            new_dict[attr] = copy.deepcopy(self.__dict__[attr])
-
-        return new_dict
-
-    def __setstate__(self, state):
-        for (k, v) in state.items():
-            setattr(self, k, v)
-
-    # operator overloads
-    def __add__(self, other):
-        copied = copy.deepcopy(self)
-        copied._right_extra_msg += other.__str__()
-        return copied
-
-    def __radd__(self, other):
-        copied = copy.deepcopy(self)
-        copied._left_extra_msg += other.__str__()
-        return copied
-
-    def __mod__(self, other):
-        # do a format string to catch and raise
-        # any possible KeyErrors from missing parameters
-        self.data % other
-        copied = copy.deepcopy(self)
-        return copied._save_parameters(other)
-
-    def __mul__(self, other):
-        return self.data * other
-
-    def __rmul__(self, other):
-        return other * self.data
-
-    def __getitem__(self, key):
-        return self.data[key]
-
-    def __getslice__(self, start, end):
-        return self.data.__getslice__(start, end)
-
-    def __getattribute__(self, name):
-        # NOTE(mrodden): handle lossy operations that we can't deal with yet
-        # These override the UserString implementation, since UserString
-        # uses our __class__ attribute to try and build a new message
-        # after running the inner data string through the operation.
-        # At that point, we have lost the gettext message id and can just
-        # safely resolve to a string instead.
-        ops = ['capitalize', 'center', 'decode', 'encode',
-               'expandtabs', 'ljust', 'lstrip', 'replace', 'rjust', 'rstrip',
-               'strip', 'swapcase', 'title', 'translate', 'upper', 'zfill']
-        if name in ops:
-            return getattr(self.data, name)
-        else:
-            return UserString.UserString.__getattribute__(self, name)
-
-
-class LocaleHandler(logging.Handler):
-    """Handler that can have a locale associated to translate Messages.
-
-    A quick example of how to utilize the Message class above.
-    LocaleHandler takes a locale and a target logging.Handler object
-    to forward LogRecord objects to after translating the internal Message.
-    """
-
-    def __init__(self, locale, target):
-        """Initialize a LocaleHandler
-
-        :param locale: locale to use for translating messages
-        :param target: logging.Handler object to forward
-                       LogRecord objects to after translation
-        """
-        logging.Handler.__init__(self)
-        self.locale = locale
-        self.target = target
-
-    def emit(self, record):
-        if isinstance(record.msg, Message):
-            # set the locale and resolve to a string
-            record.msg.locale = self.locale
-
-        self.target.emit(record)