Rosetta Legalese

[Steve Alexander]

> If so, then why has Rosetta not been accepted by Debian which has
> chosen to go with Pootle instead. Without getting pedantic, is it not
> in some way related to possible legal issues at some point.

I'm not part of the Debian project, so I can't speak for why Debian
would choose one thing or another.


>>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.
> 
> Does it mean any PO files be used with another translation software
> which supports this format ?

Yes.  You can load a PO file into KBabel and edit it there, or you can
load it into emacs or vim.


>>Entire translations for an Ubuntu package can be downloaded from Rosetta
>>as PO files, which is not a proprietary format.
> 
> Can anyone modify, add to the files too without permission from the
> author or Canonical ?

Translators agree that their translations are submitted under the same
licence as the software they are translating.  The GPL does not make you
to ask permission of anyone to make changes to GPLed files.  So, if you
have a PO file for GPL software, you don't need to ask anyone's
permission to alter it.

-- 
Steve Alexander