Re: BSD licence

[luca@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (luca (ᴉ) innurindi)]

danilo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Danilo Šegan) writes:

> Hi Luca,

Hi Danilo

thanks for your reply, I read it carefully and have some
considerations about it.

> Yesterday at 12:05, luca innurindi wrote:
>
>> I don't understand, but these strings came from upstream translations?
>> If yes, the Ubuntu translators mustn't modify them without asking to the
>> upstream translators.
>
> License changes will apply only to work contributed directly through
> Launchpad: upstream translations are not treated under the same rules.

Good, so the upstream translations remain with their own license, but
what do you think to do in the cases where an user uploads them after the automatic
import in Launchpad because they weren't complete at that time?

> [...]
> So, while we do understand there are some risks, we feel they are very
> low. 

Whty do you think so? IMHO I see nothing that prevents someone from
profiting from this license. Everyone registered in Launchpad can export the pos and
distribute them with hia own license.

> And we are not alone in that, FSF feels the same way (judging by
> their actions):
>
>   http://translationproject.org/html/whydisclaim.html
>
> As you can see there, many GPL projects which otherwise require strict
> copyright assignment in paper, require copyright _disclaimers_ when it
> comes to translations ("disclaiming a copyright" means that you are
> giving your work out into public domain; this is even "worse" than
> what BSD license does: BSD license allows you to still keep at least
> some rights, and in some countries, you can even revoke it if your
> "moral" rights have been violated).

I already know the policy of FSF but I don't see in this an assignment
of translations to public domain but a dislaimer for FSF on the translations
that the copyright holder has provided to FSF, not a disclaimer for everyone.

See for example from the form the translator must send to FSF:
" (though this disclaimer applies to all such translations that
I may subsequently provide to the FSF, whatever the language)"

And the reason because FSF requests this disclaimer could be seen in
my opinion similar to the reason for the assignment of copyright for software provided to the FSF projects:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html
that is a more effectiveness in protecting the GPL software and its translations.

And let me make a question: if we distribute Ubuntu with a
license that meets our philosophy of Free Software and so
it's a GPL-like license, couldn't seem not strange for an user of this
software that we ditsribute the translations
that come with this software in another license?

I understand the motivations that this license could easily make the
translations reused by other open source projects getting some
consistency in opren source translations, but IMHO I don't see why we
have to adapt to licenses of other projects and not other projects to
adapt to our like-GPL license as we have now when it's written that
the license is the same of the software it comes with.

Sory for the long email, these are only my 2 cents if they could
contribute to the evaluation of the opportunity to change the license.

-- 
luca, (ᴉ) innurindi
Luca Padrin
sistemi software
email/jabber: luca@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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fellow della Free Software Foundation Europe

  "I' walking down to emperors bay,
   A signal, a sound, dolphins at play."
          (emperors ballad, 2008-04-29)