launchpad-doc team mailing list archive

[Launchpad Bug Tracker <478902@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

You have been subscribed to a public bug:

https://help.launchpad.net/TermsofUse

Translations copyright section in the above terms of use should be
clearer regarding the fact that if you use any translation done in
Launchpad, that work is being given to you under BSD license, not the
license of your project. There's no license change directly from the
author, but from the fact that your project's license is BSD-compatible.
The author is the copyright owner and he's not giving you his work under
the license adopted in your project, he is giving you his work under
BSD.

The BSD text stands that it must be reproduced in derived works, and
that's the point of an author giving his work to LP users under BSD x
under any BSD-compatible license they wish. In the current approach, the
BSD license *should* be included in your software package, because you
are reusing a BSD work.

However I wonder how many people are actually aware that this is the
correct procedure. Specially, when you download a .po file generated by
Launchpad, it should stand the license as BSD, not as "the same" of the
underlying project. And it should include a copy of the BSD license
inside or along with the .po file.

For avoiding the need of including the BSD license in the projects, I
would change the terms of use like this:

Rather than "these translations are made available to Canonical and in
turn to you under the BSD license", we could have "the author of these
translations makes them available to Canonical and Launchpad users under
any license they wish to use, as long as that license is BSD-
compatible.". I think this is my core point.

If that for some reason is not possible, then I think the terms of use
could have at least the mentioned clarification about the need of
including the BSD text regardless of your project's license, and the
exported .po files should have the BSD license attached somehow.

Below is an IRC conversation from #fsf that inspired me to open this
bug.

--------------------

RenatoSilva: something seems wrong here:
https://help.launchpad.net/TermsofUse#Translations%20copyright. It says
that the work done in Launchpad is available under BSD for other users,
rather than under the license of the underlying project using those
translations, which would be perfectly possible, so that when you do a
translation in LP, you are automatically giving others the right of
using your translations under BSD-compatible licenses. It's a license
change allowed by the copyright owners and that's different from
incorporating a BSD work into another with a different license.

RenatoSilva: I mean, according to the terms of use and the BSD text, all
projects using translations from LP *should* include the BSD text in
their packages regardless of the project's license. However when e.g you
download a .po file, it stands that its license is the same as the
project, rather than explictly specifying it as BSD, which should be
done according to the above terms.

RenatoSilva: I just wonder why not stand something different in the
terms of use: "when you translate something in LP, you're automatically
licensing your work under any BSD-compatible license, for any LP user
that wishes to reuse that work". Therefore it would not require adding
the BSD text, which I wonder if anyone currently does. [...]

RenatoSilva: Kamping_Kaiser: I think as I said above, there's no point
to have a static licensing when you can have a copyright holder allowing
another licenses.

Kamping_Kaiser: RenatoSilva: it ensures everything acquired from LP has
a particular license, irrespective of what might happen elsewhere.

RenatoSilva: that is, when I reuse a translation done by someone else in
LP, that person is giving me the translation under the license of my
project, because it's BSD compatible. But that's not how it works
(according to the terms of use, but it seems that's how it's interpreted
in practice):  currently, when I reuse a translation done by someone
else in LP, he's giving me his work under BSD always, which obligates me
to include the BSD text in my project, which I suspect too few people
actually do. My point is that the copyright holder does not need to give
the work always under BSD, he can give the work under any license
because he's the copyright owner. The advantage is that you would not
need to include the BSD text. Your project keeps "mono-licensed".

RenatoSilva: however I must confess "BSD license" is much more clear
than "any BSD-compatible license". Compatible would need some clear
definition, and I wonder if it would be possible.

RenatoSilva: # Copyright (c) 2009 Rosetta Contributors and Canonical Ltd 2009
RenatoSilva: # This file is distributed under the same license as the moin-solenoid package.
RenatoSilva: This text ^^^^ is what you get when you download a .po file generated by LP. It should not say "the same license", it should say "BSD" for LP correctly following its own terms. However iirc that's a default message from gettext, maybe LP maintainers didn't notice that.

** Affects: launchpad-documentation
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

-- 
Improve or clarify translation licensing procedure
https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/bugs/478902
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Launchpad Documentation Team, which is subscribed to Launchpad Documentation.