Relicensing pt_BR translation file

Wagner Bruna wagner.bruna+mercurial at gmail.com
Fri Oct 9 16:08:46 UTC 2009


Hello,

Matt Mackall wrote:
> On Thu, 2009-10-08 at 21:31 -0300, Wagner Bruna wrote:
>> We (Diego Oliveira and me) relicensed our pt_BR translation work as
>> 3-clause BSD, for the benefit of the TortoiseHg translation¹. Would it
>> be possible (and desirable) for the Mercurial project to distribute
>> its i18n/pt_BR.po file (or, more precisely, its Brazilian Portuguese
>> strings) as 3-clause BSD (therefore including future contributions)?

Just to make it clear: as Martin explained, the main issue here is
that TortoiseHg uses the main instance of Launchpad to manage its
translations. And according to the FAQ, launchpad.net demands that all
those strings are licensed under the 3-clause BSD license. My question
(and my translation work) simply assumed this was OK.

>> If so, I'll send a patch to add the licensing terms to the beginning
>> of that file.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Wagner
>> 1. https://help.launchpad.net/Translations/LicensingFAQ
>
> Sorry, you can't do that. Faithful translation of text into other
> languages unquestionably constitutes a derived work of the original
> text. That applies pretty much anywhere in the world that sells books.
>
> The text in Mercurial is GPLv2, ergo translations of that text must also
> be GPLv2.

My understanding is that a work derived from a GPLv2 work must be
*available* as GPLv2, so a BSD translation would qualify (the combined
work (Mercurial + translation) will surely be available as GPLv2,
since the translation license is compatible).

I understand that legal issues sometimes don't follow logic, but I got
this interpretation from the following FAQ item:

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CombinePublicDomainWithGPL

That suggests a GPLv2 work could include parts available under
different licenses (and fwiw, I do understand that "public domain"
isn't a license).

Also, in my country translations themselves are considered creative
works, so I may choose another (additional) license for *my
translation work itself*. That may be useless in itself (depending on
how exactly the original work restrict the distribution of a
derivative work *by itself*), but it would matter if for example the
original work is relicensed, or if the translation could be reused in
another context.

Anyway, I got my answer :-)  Thanks for your clarifications.

Wagner

> I have no idea what the Launchpad folks are thinking, but this clearly
> cannot work for translating GPLed projects (or any of the numerous
> licenses with rights less permissive than BSD).
>
> And there's no way we're going to make some weird hybrid license that
> says "all code is GPL, all text strings are BSD".
>
> --
> http://selenic.com : development and support for Mercurial and Linux
>




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