Rosetta Legalese

[Steve Alexander]

Hello again Svaksha,

>>The "legal" page talks about the data that you can download or view on
>>the Launchpad website.  It doesn't talk about the Launchpad or Rosetta
>>software itself.
>
> What about the files translated by other authors ? 
> /quote:
> All translations submitted into Rosetta are the work of the translator
> that created them, and are submitted under the same license as the
> software being translated.
> /unquote.
> 
> 1] Does this mean the translation done by other authors for any other
> language is not freely distributable ?

No.  It means that if someone submits translations of a GPL application
to the Rosetta website, they agree that their translations are available
under the terms of the GPL.

If someone submits translations of a BSD-licensed application, the
person agrees that their translations are also available under the BSD
licence.


> 2] Even if the software (example, any Debian package) being translated
> is free, the tool used (here Rosetta, non-GPL) for translating a
> package is not free.   Then what is the legal status of the final
> product (translated software package), GPL or non-GPL?

The fact that the source code to Rosetta is not available does not
change the status of translations produced with the help of Rosetta.

It is very rare that the tools you use have any effect on the status of
the end product.

If you draw a picture using Adobe Photoshop, your picture does not
belong to Adobe.  If you draw a picture using the Gimp, which is
licensed under the GPL, you may license your picture any way you want to.


> /quote:
> In addition, the translator grants to Canonical Ltd the right to
> publish the translation and use the translation in other software
> packages under their license.
> /unquote.
> 
> I am not a legal expert but does the above mean that I cannot freely
> use another authors translation even if redistributed under GPL ?
> or will Canonical Ltd have to grant permission for reuse ?

The text you quoted talks about expanding rights, not limiting them.

Also, note that if something is distributed under the terms of the GPL,
you may distribute it under the terms of the GPL.  Because the GPL
applies only to distributing things, you may use the translation however
you please.


> Since Rosetta is non GPL if Canonical decides to withdraw support or
> if it changed their company license then what happens to that language
> package ?

The language package is independent of Rosetta.  It is composed of
standard PO files, and these can be maintained using text editors or
specialized editors.  The advantage of using Rosetta is that it makes it
easy for people to collaborate in translating software, and allows
people to translate even when they are not software experts.


>>>Will Rosetta be released under GPL ?
>>
>>I hope that sometime Rosetta will be released under an open source
>>licence.  There are no concrete plans at the moment.
> 
> I hope so too !  

I've now checked this out.  Canonical will definitely be releasing the
source code to Rosetta under an open source licence at some point in the
future.  We do not yet know exactly when that will be.  Some parts of
Rosetta and Launchpad have been made available under open source
licences already.  We'll continue to release parts of Launchpad as we
find opportunities to do so, until we're ready to release the whole thing.


> I volunteered for translation with Ubuntu-Linux hoping it would be
> available in my local languages for *free* (aka GPL), and its sad that
> the volunteer work is bound under a proprietary format at some legal
> stage which is all very  confusing and frustrating.

Translations of GPLed software in Ubuntu are licensed under the GPL.
The fact that Rosetta has been used to translate them does not change this.

Entire translations for an Ubuntu package can be downloaded from Rosetta
as PO files, which is not a proprietary format.

-- 
Steve Alexander