From infosource at diasporan.net Wed Jun 17 19:38:54 2009 From: infosource at diasporan.net (Mori Sugimoto) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:38:54 +0100 Subject: [translations] Copyright? Message-ID: <4A39464E.6010505@diasporan.net> Hi, Sorry this may be an FAQ, but I couldn't find any answers to this: I'm wondering if we are allowed to claim copyright to translations (and .po files) of any strings in Drupal and its core / contrib modules. I noticed many .po files come with a copyright notice at the top of the files, but since Drupal is licensed under GPL, my understanding is that .po files are derivatives and thus they cannot be copyrighted. I couldn't find a specific answer for Drupal translation files, but did find some sources that my argument is correct (at least in the States) so I'm assuming that is the case: www.linuxjournal.com/article/6366 "A ?derivative work? is a work based upon one or more pre-existing works, such as a translation . . . A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a ?derivative work?." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License "The GPL is clear in requiring that all derivative works of code under the GPL must themselves be under the GPL." Thanks in advance for your reply. Kind regards, Mori From gerhard at killesreiter.de Wed Jun 17 20:02:38 2009 From: gerhard at killesreiter.de (Gerhard Killesreiter) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:02:38 +0200 Subject: [translations] Copyright? In-Reply-To: <4A39464E.6010505@diasporan.net> References: <4A39464E.6010505@diasporan.net> Message-ID: <4A394BDE.1050002@killesreiter.de> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Mori Sugimoto schrieb: > Hi, > > Sorry this may be an FAQ, but I couldn't find any answers to this: > I'm wondering if we are allowed to claim copyright to translations > (and .po files) of any strings in Drupal and its core / contrib > modules. I noticed many .po files come with a copyright notice at > the top of the files, but since Drupal is licensed under GPL, my > understanding is that .po files are derivatives and thus they cannot > be copyrighted. Even GPLed code is copyrighted. :) > I couldn't find a specific answer for Drupal translation files, but > did find some sources that my argument is correct (at least in the > States) so I'm assuming that is the case: > > www.linuxjournal.com/article/6366 > "A derivative work is a work based upon one or more pre-existing > works, such as a translation . . . A work consisting of editorial > revisions, annotations, elaborations or other modifications which, as a > whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a derivative work ." > > > en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License > "The GPL is clear in requiring that all derivative works of code under > the GPL must themselves be under the GPL." Larry should reply to this, I think, but he isn't on this list. I've put him in CC. Cheers, Gerhard -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAko5S94ACgkQfg6TFvELooQw1QCdHrCL4iV8ouYsP58wtSHsqIYN lpcAoIN41dQQw1aAISHeSrE30bt3ty4J =SZ/W -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From infosource at diasporan.net Wed Jun 17 20:50:10 2009 From: infosource at diasporan.net (Mori Sugimoto) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:50:10 +0100 Subject: [translations] Copyright? In-Reply-To: <4A394BDE.1050002@killesreiter.de> References: <4A39464E.6010505@diasporan.net> <4A394BDE.1050002@killesreiter.de> Message-ID: <4A395702.2060208@diasporan.net> Gerhard Killesreiter wrote: > Mori Sugimoto schrieb: > > Hi, > > > Sorry this may be an FAQ, but I couldn't find any answers to this: > > I'm wondering if we are allowed to claim copyright to translations > > (and .po files) of any strings in Drupal and its core / contrib > > modules. I noticed many .po files come with a copyright notice at > > the top of the files, but since Drupal is licensed under GPL, my > > understanding is that .po files are derivatives and thus they cannot > > be copyrighted. > > Even GPLed code is copyrighted. :) Yes, as it is declared in the COPYRIGHT.txt: "All Drupal code is Copyright 2001 - 2008 by the original authors." This means unless the translator is also the copyright holder (i.e. the person who wrote the code), they cannot claim copyright for the translation. Am I correct? > > > I couldn't find a specific answer for Drupal translation files, but > > did find some sources that my argument is correct (at least in the > > States) so I'm assuming that is the case: > > > www.linuxjournal.com/article/6366 > > "A derivative work is a work based upon one or more pre-existing > > works, such as a translation . . . A work consisting of editorial > > revisions, annotations, elaborations or other modifications which, as a > > whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a derivative > work ." > > > > en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License > > "The GPL is clear in requiring that all derivative works of code under > > the GPL must themselves be under the GPL." > > Larry should reply to this, I think, but he isn't on this list. Larry, your advise will be highly appreciated :) Cheers, Mori > > > I've put him in CC. > > Cheers, > Gerhard _______________________________________________ translations mailing list translations at drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/translations From gerhard at killesreiter.de Wed Jun 17 20:56:25 2009 From: gerhard at killesreiter.de (Gerhard Killesreiter) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:56:25 +0200 Subject: [translations] Copyright? In-Reply-To: <4A395702.2060208@diasporan.net> References: <4A39464E.6010505@diasporan.net> <4A394BDE.1050002@killesreiter.de> <4A395702.2060208@diasporan.net> Message-ID: <4A395879.5040907@killesreiter.de> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Mori Sugimoto schrieb: > Gerhard Killesreiter wrote: >> Mori Sugimoto schrieb: >>> Hi, >>> Sorry this may be an FAQ, but I couldn't find any answers to this: >>> I'm wondering if we are allowed to claim copyright to translations >>> (and .po files) of any strings in Drupal and its core / contrib >>> modules. I noticed many .po files come with a copyright notice at >>> the top of the files, but since Drupal is licensed under GPL, my >>> understanding is that .po files are derivatives and thus they cannot >>> be copyrighted. >> Even GPLed code is copyrighted. :) > Yes, as it is declared in the COPYRIGHT.txt: "All Drupal code is > Copyright 2001 - 2008 by the original authors." This means unless > the translator is also the copyright holder (i.e. the person who > wrote the code), they cannot claim copyright for the translation. Am > I correct? No, I don't think you are. Regardless of the GPL a translation (if it is more than just technical) certainly can be copyrighted. If a PO-file translation of short strings like in Drupal is copyrightable at all can be debated. The threshold of origiinality might not be crossed. Cheers, Gerhard -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAko5WHkACgkQfg6TFvELooTNcACePtmqghwzRsIdTIaTfL6VtZSg EaIAn1/YwGIQXnluAqbMfqiXlFHC0ucM =z275 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From gerhard at killesreiter.de Wed Jun 17 22:00:53 2009 From: gerhard at killesreiter.de (Gerhard Killesreiter) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:53 +0200 Subject: [translations] Copyright? In-Reply-To: <4A3964CB.1070806@garfieldtech.com> References: <4A39464E.6010505@diasporan.net> <4A394BDE.1050002@killesreiter.de> <4A395702.2060208@diasporan.net> <4A395879.5040907@killesreiter.de> <4A3964CB.1070806@garfieldtech.com> Message-ID: <4A396795.1090709@killesreiter.de> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 larry at garfieldtech.com schrieb: > 1) Anything in Drupal CVS is under the GPL. The copyright is held by > all kinds of people, but the license is the GPL. That includes all > translatable strings. > > 2) A translation is a derivative work of the work being translated. In > this case, the work being translated is Drupal. > > 3) Derivative works of a GPLed work must be distributed under the GPL if > they are distributed. > > 4apply. > > 4a) If that is the case, then neither the original string nor the > translation of it are subject to copyright and so a copyright notice is > inappropriate. > > 4b) If that is not the case, then the original text is copyrighted its > original author and released under the GPL and the translation, as a > derivative work, must also be under the GPL. Claiming a copyright on > the translation is valid, but it still must be distributed under the GPL. > Thanks! > Drupal's CVS policy is to not state a copyright or authorship on > anything, since most code gets so many people working on it that > separating out who did what is infeasible. Commit messages should > specify credit. Therefore, po files in CVS should follow the same > convention as code: Don't specify an author or a copyright or a license > in the file itself and let the packaging system add a LICENSE.txt file > as appropriate. While I agree, this is a bit impractical. The copyright notices in the PO files are usually added by the PO translator software. While it is possible to remove them (man vi), most translators might not know how. In fact, our own extractor.php adds this to the header of the files: $output = "# LANGUAGE translation of Drupal (". $file .")\n"; $output .= "# Copyright YEAR NAME \n"; Since they do not claim something that is not true, I suggest to ignore them. Cheers, Gerhard -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAko5Z5UACgkQfg6TFvELooQCnQCgwKXzknncX6m8df0uCLI/80M9 E6IAniNRkXjj8cPIRMRmS0rLvgfWv8yb =O/9K -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From infosource at diasporan.net Wed Jun 17 22:07:20 2009 From: infosource at diasporan.net (Mori Sugimoto) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:07:20 +0100 Subject: [translations] Copyright? In-Reply-To: <4A396795.1090709@killesreiter.de> References: <4A39464E.6010505@diasporan.net> <4A394BDE.1050002@killesreiter.de> <4A395702.2060208@diasporan.net> <4A395879.5040907@killesreiter.de> <4A3964CB.1070806@garfieldtech.com> <4A396795.1090709@killesreiter.de> Message-ID: <4A396918.9040504@diasporan.net> A brilliant answer (on the whole copyright issue) and insight (on impracticality of removing the notice). Thank you *very* much Larry and Gerhard! Cheers, Mori Gerhard Killesreiter wrote: > larry at garfieldtech.com schrieb: > > 1) Anything in Drupal CVS is under the GPL. The copyright is held by > > all kinds of people, but the license is the GPL. That includes all > > translatable strings. > > > 2) A translation is a derivative work of the work being translated. In > > this case, the work being translated is Drupal. > > > 3) Derivative works of a GPLed work must be distributed under the GPL if > > they are distributed. > > > 4apply. > > > 4a) If that is the case, then neither the original string nor the > > translation of it are subject to copyright and so a copyright notice is > > inappropriate. > > > 4b) If that is not the case, then the original text is copyrighted its > > original author and released under the GPL and the translation, as a > > derivative work, must also be under the GPL. Claiming a copyright on > > the translation is valid, but it still must be distributed under the > GPL. > > > Thanks! > > > Drupal's CVS policy is to not state a copyright or authorship on > > anything, since most code gets so many people working on it that > > separating out who did what is infeasible. Commit messages should > > specify credit. Therefore, po files in CVS should follow the same > > convention as code: Don't specify an author or a copyright or a license > > in the file itself and let the packaging system add a LICENSE.txt file > > as appropriate. > > While I agree, this is a bit impractical. The copyright notices in the > PO files are usually added by the PO translator software. While it is > possible to remove them (man vi), most translators might not know how. > > In fact, our own extractor.php adds this to the header of the files: > > $output = "# LANGUAGE translation of Drupal (". $file .")\n"; > $output .= "# Copyright YEAR NAME \n"; > > Since they do not claim something that is not true, I suggest to ignore > them. > > Cheers, > Gerhard _______________________________________________ translations mailing list translations at drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/translations From gerhard at killesreiter.de Wed Jun 17 22:09:38 2009 From: gerhard at killesreiter.de (Gerhard Killesreiter) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:09:38 +0200 Subject: [translations] Copyright? In-Reply-To: <4A3968B7.9020809@garfieldtech.com> References: <4A39464E.6010505@diasporan.net> <4A394BDE.1050002@killesreiter.de> <4A395702.2060208@diasporan.net> <4A395879.5040907@killesreiter.de> <4A3964CB.1070806@garfieldtech.com> <4A396795.1090709@killesreiter.de> <4A3968B7.9020809@garfieldtech.com> Message-ID: <4A3969A2.9030305@killesreiter.de> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 larry at garfieldtech.com schrieb: > Gerhard Killesreiter wrote: > >>> Drupal's CVS policy is to not state a copyright or authorship on >>> anything, since most code gets so many people working on it that >>> separating out who did what is infeasible. Commit messages should >>> specify credit. Therefore, po files in CVS should follow the same >>> convention as code: Don't specify an author or a copyright or a license >>> in the file itself and let the packaging system add a LICENSE.txt file >>> as appropriate. >> >> While I agree, this is a bit impractical. The copyright notices in the >> PO files are usually added by the PO translator software. While it is >> possible to remove them (man vi), most translators might not know how. >> >> In fact, our own extractor.php adds this to the header of the files: >> >> $output = "# LANGUAGE translation of Drupal (". $file .")\n"; >> $output .= "# Copyright YEAR NAME \n"; >> >> Since they do not claim something that is not true, I suggest to ignore >> them. >> >> Cheers, >> Gerhard > > Well they may become untrue over time if multiple people work on a given > PO file. That's why PHP files do not carry an author identification. I > do not know the usual workflow for PO files well enough to say if it is > a valid concern there, so will defer to Gerhard on the enforcement front. Thank you so much. :p I guess a good policy would be to place something like "the Drupal translators for foo language" in that line. Realistically I've no time to enforce this at all. But maybe Mori would like to draw up some policy that we can add to the translators' handbook. Cheers, Gerhard -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAko5aaIACgkQfg6TFvELooRDdwCfSwdVPZqR8Sq4MPR0vf+bSh8f dJoAoIAs1t1FdAChDTSsP/3hiTA0ZufW =Hx05 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From infosource at diasporan.net Wed Jun 17 22:13:47 2009 From: infosource at diasporan.net (Mori Sugimoto) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:13:47 +0100 Subject: [translations] Copyright? In-Reply-To: <4A3969A2.9030305@killesreiter.de> References: <4A39464E.6010505@diasporan.net> <4A394BDE.1050002@killesreiter.de> <4A395702.2060208@diasporan.net> <4A395879.5040907@killesreiter.de> <4A3964CB.1070806@garfieldtech.com> <4A396795.1090709@killesreiter.de> <4A3968B7.9020809@garfieldtech.com> <4A3969A2.9030305@killesreiter.de> Message-ID: <4A396A9B.6060207@diasporan.net> Gerhard Killesreiter wrote: > larry at garfieldtech.com schrieb: > > Gerhard Killesreiter wrote: > > >>> Drupal's CVS policy is to not state a copyright or authorship on > >>> anything, since most code gets so many people working on it that > >>> separating out who did what is infeasible. Commit messages should > >>> specify credit. Therefore, po files in CVS should follow the same > >>> convention as code: Don't specify an author or a copyright or a > license > >>> in the file itself and let the packaging system add a LICENSE.txt file > >>> as appropriate. > >> While I agree, this is a bit impractical. The copyright notices in the > >> PO files are usually added by the PO translator software. While it is > >> possible to remove them (man vi), most translators might not know how. > >> > >> In fact, our own extractor.php adds this to the header of the files: > >> > >> $output = "# LANGUAGE translation of Drupal (". $file .")\n"; > >> $output .= "# Copyright YEAR NAME \n"; > >> > >> Since they do not claim something that is not true, I suggest to ignore > >> them. > >> > >> Cheers, > >> Gerhard > > Well they may become untrue over time if multiple people work on a given > > PO file. That's why PHP files do not carry an author identification. I > > do not know the usual workflow for PO files well enough to say if it is > > a valid concern there, so will defer to Gerhard on the enforcement > front. > > Thank you so much. :p > > I guess a good policy would be to place something like "the Drupal > translators for foo language" in that line. > > Realistically I've no time to enforce this at all. > > But maybe Mori would like to draw up some policy that we can add to the > translators' handbook. That's *exactly* what I was thinking! :) Mori > > Cheers, > Gerhard _______________________________________________ translations mailing list translations at drupal.org http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/translations From gabor at hojtsy.hu Thu Jun 18 08:32:58 2009 From: gabor at hojtsy.hu (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=E1bor_Hojtsy?=) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:32:58 +0200 Subject: [translations] Copyright? In-Reply-To: <4A3969A2.9030305@killesreiter.de> References: <4A39464E.6010505@diasporan.net> <4A394BDE.1050002@killesreiter.de> <4A395702.2060208@diasporan.net> <4A395879.5040907@killesreiter.de> <4A3964CB.1070806@garfieldtech.com> <4A396795.1090709@killesreiter.de> <4A3968B7.9020809@garfieldtech.com> <4A3969A2.9030305@killesreiter.de> Message-ID: <86ca3ccb0906180132k35d96f18u3a3b18529c4fad8a@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 12:09 AM, Gerhard Killesreiter wrote: > I guess a good policy would be to place something like "the Drupal > translators for foo language" in that line. > > Realistically I've no time to enforce this at all. Historically the Hungarian team used "Copyright 2006 by the Hungarian Translation Team" or something like that. There were quite a few debates on wording of certain translations that we felt originality can be claimed :) Also, I've been removing individual names and converting them to this generic format, as I found them. G?bor From infosource at diasporan.net Thu Jun 18 10:59:48 2009 From: infosource at diasporan.net (Mori Sugimoto) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:59:48 +0100 Subject: [translations] Copyright? In-Reply-To: <86ca3ccb0906180132k35d96f18u3a3b18529c4fad8a@mail.gmail.com> References: <4A39464E.6010505@diasporan.net> <4A394BDE.1050002@killesreiter.de> <4A395702.2060208@diasporan.net> <4A395879.5040907@killesreiter.de> <4A3964CB.1070806@garfieldtech.com> <4A396795.1090709@killesreiter.de> <4A3968B7.9020809@garfieldtech.com> <4A3969A2.9030305@killesreiter.de> <86ca3ccb0906180132k35d96f18u3a3b18529c4fad8a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A3A1E24.70302@diasporan.net> Thanks for the info G?bor. Your argument about originality is interesting. The reason for asking this question is that one of local user groups in Japan are planning on setting up a l10n server to facilitate translation of modules. My aim is to prevent anyone, including the group who will host the l10n server, from claiming ownership of the fruits of collaboration. We have a long history of conflicts among local user groups (sigh) and people tend to be sceptical when this kind of collaboration effort is attempted. I would like to wither such scepticism by removing elements that potentially benefit certain individuals / group so people can hop in and work together without a concern. Mori G?bor Hojtsy wrote: > On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 12:09 AM, Gerhard > Killesreiter wrote: > >> I guess a good policy would be to place something like "the Drupal >> translators for foo language" in that line. >> >> Realistically I've no time to enforce this at all. >> > > Historically the Hungarian team used "Copyright 2006 by the Hungarian > Translation Team" or something like that. There were quite a few > debates on wording of certain translations that we felt originality > can be claimed :) Also, I've been removing individual names and > converting them to this generic format, as I found them. > > G?bor > _______________________________________________ > translations mailing list > translations at drupal.org > http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/translations >