diff --git a/gitlab/functions.sh b/gitlab/functions.sh
index 180a119695cb25f6b7dc01764c55415b1d36af49..99c31df2efe6e118191115b0bf987484e0757ec1 100644
--- a/gitlab/functions.sh
+++ b/gitlab/functions.sh
@@ -9,7 +9,6 @@ osname() {
   [[ "$(uname -s)" == "Darwin" ]] && echo "macosx" || echo "linux"
 }
 
-
 # Determines the visibility of the current package
 visibility() {
   local code=$(curl --output /dev/null --silent --fail --write-out "%{http_code}" ${CI_PROJECT_URL})
@@ -37,9 +36,20 @@ is_master() {
 }
 
 
+# Checks whether to use "date" or "gdate"
+gnudate() {
+  if hash gdate 2>/dev/null; then
+    echo gdate
+  else
+    echo date
+  fi
+}
+DATE=`gnudate`
+
+
 # datetime prefix for logging
 log_datetime() {
-	echo "($(date +%T.%3N))"
+	echo "($(${DATE} +%T.%3N))"
 }
 
 # Functions for coloring echo commands
@@ -475,5 +485,7 @@ export_env DOC_SERVER_PREFIX
 check_env DOC_UPLOADS
 
 # Sets up the language so Unicode filenames are considered correctly
-LANG="C"
+LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
+LC_ALL="${LANG}"
 export_env LANG
+export_env LC_ALL