GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 343554
GPL/LGPL translations should include disclaimer
Last modified: 2020-03-03 18:34:26 UTC
I noticed that the template for GPL/LGPL does not include a disclaimer from FSF regarding the legal issues with the translated text. http://kvota.net/doc-l10n/PO/desktop-gpl.HEAD.pot http://kvota.net/doc-l10n/PO/desktop-lgpl.HEAD.pot http://www.gnu.org/licenses/translations.html "To label your translations as unofficial we want you to add the following text at the beginning, both in English and in the language of the translation---replacing language with the name of that language: This is an unofficial translation of the GNU General Public License into language. It was not published by the Free Software Foundation, and does not legally state the distribution terms for software that uses the GNU GPL--only the original English text of the GNU GPL does that. However, we hope that this translation will help language speakers understand the GNU GPL better."
Daniel: shouldn't this be moved to the docs component of the gnome-desktop? I don't think it's a bug in xml2po, is it?
Vincent, it's a bug in both (the one in gnome-desktop might be blocked on this one). The thing is that you can easily add disclaimer to the source (English) version, and have that translated, but we don't want a disclaimer to be in the English as well. Also, the rules from FSF are that you need to include both English and translated disclaimer into translations. Which makes it only that much more complicated. So, we first need some support in xml2po for having translatable messages in XML files which will be removed for originals, or simply providing another gpl-mode derived from docbook-mode which will add disclaimers to translations itself. Latter option is easier (and better) from xml2po POV, but we'd need some gnome-doc-utils.make changes then.
You could get some ideas from the Debian-Installer build. http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/ Swedish GPL translation with disclaimer included http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/sv.sparc/apf.html
Bump
gnome-doc-utils has been superseded by yelp-xsl, yelp-tools, and itstool. gnome-doc-utils will not see any further development, hence closing as WONTFIX. See https://gitlab.gnome.org/Infrastructure/Infrastructure/issues/255