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Re: license of translations



Nicolas =?iso-8859-1?Q?Fran=E7ois?= <nicolas.francois@centraliens.net>
> I would like to avoid the positions of two other projects:
> 
>  * The Translation Project is asking for a (paper) disclaimer for the GNU
>    translations [1] (I find it too restrictive)

This is arguably the safest and is similar to other GNU contributions,
AIUI.  I doubt many projects have the manpower/structures to handle it,
so I see why you want to avoid it.

>  * Translations from Rosetta do not contain the name of the contributors
>    (how to relicense a software with such a translation?)

I think this is stupid and makes lawyerbombs, so I see why to avoid it.

> [...] The easiest way would be to indicate
> that the licenses of the translations done with this infrastructure are
> the same as the original documents.
> 
> Is it sufficient to have such a notice in the documentation of the L10N
> infrastrusture (or on the main page, all pages, on mailing list
> subscription, etc.)?

Maybe, but I'm not sure.  Why take that risk?

> The infrastructure will also serve some files (e.g. PO files), which
> contain original strings (e.g. the strings used in the software). These
> files may not contain a license (when they are taken out of their source
> tree) or a copyright notice. Do you think it is a problem we should take
> into account while building this infrastructure? Do you have an idea on
> how it can be solved?

Yes, it should be taken into account.

Could the infrastructure insert a standard header for the translator
copyright notice(s) and put the work under the software's licence?
This may require a little extra setup when each source tree is added
to the infrastructure, but I think it is still a fairly simple solution.
I suggest telling it which lines of which file contain the licence
reference, so it can update itself if the upstream licence changes (say
GPLv2->3 or even just replacing the FSF's address).

For additional safety, can the infrastructure accept GPG-signed submissions?

Thanks for working on translation support,
-- 
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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