Copyright?

[Mori Sugimoto]

Hi,

Sorry this may be an FAQ, but I couldn't find any answers to this:
I'm wondering if we are allowed to claim copyright to translations (and
.po files) of any strings in Drupal and its core / contrib modules.
I noticed many .po files come with a copyright notice at the top of the
files, but since Drupal is licensed under GPL, my understanding is that
.po files are derivatives and thus they cannot be copyrighted.

I couldn't find a specific answer for Drupal translation files, but did
find some sources that my argument is correct (at least in the States)
so I'm assuming that is the case:

www.linuxjournal.com/article/6366
"A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more pre-existing
works, such as a translation . . . A work consisting of editorial
revisions, annotations, elaborations or other modifications which, as a
whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work”."


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License
"The GPL is clear in requiring that all derivative works of code under
the GPL must themselves be under the GPL."


Thanks in advance for your reply.

Kind regards,

Mori

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[Gerhard Killesreiter]

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Mori Sugimoto schrieb:
> Hi,
>
> Sorry this may be an FAQ, but I couldn't find any answers to this:
> I'm wondering if we are allowed to claim copyright to translations
> (and .po files) of any strings in Drupal and its core / contrib
> modules.  I noticed many .po files come with a copyright notice at
> the top of the files, but since Drupal is licensed under GPL, my
> understanding is that .po files are derivatives and thus they cannot
> be copyrighted.

Even GPLed code is copyrighted. :)

> I couldn't find a specific answer for Drupal translation files, but
> did find some sources that my argument is correct (at least in the
> States) so I'm assuming that is the case:
>
> www.linuxjournal.com/article/6366
> "A derivative work is a work based upon one or more pre-existing
> works, such as a translation . . . A work consisting of editorial
> revisions, annotations, elaborations or other modifications which, as a
> whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a derivative work."
>
>
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License
> "The GPL is clear in requiring that all derivative works of code under
> the GPL must themselves be under the GPL."

Larry should reply to this, I think, but he isn't on this list.


I've put him in CC.

Cheers,
        Gerhard
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[Mori Sugimoto]

Gerhard Killesreiter wrote:

> Mori Sugimoto schrieb:
> > Hi,
>
> > Sorry this may be an FAQ, but I couldn't find any answers to this:
> > I'm wondering if we are allowed to claim copyright to translations
> > (and .po files) of any strings in Drupal and its core / contrib
> > modules.  I noticed many .po files come with a copyright notice at
> > the top of the files, but since Drupal is licensed under GPL, my
> > understanding is that .po files are derivatives and thus they cannot
> > be copyrighted.
>
> Even GPLed code is copyrighted. :)

Yes, as it is declared in the COPYRIGHT.txt:
"All Drupal code is Copyright 2001 - 2008 by the original authors."
This means unless the translator is also the copyright holder (i.e. the
person who wrote the code), they cannot claim copyright for the
translation. Am I correct?

>
> > I couldn't find a specific answer for Drupal translation files, but
> > did find some sources that my argument is correct (at least in the
> > States) so I'm assuming that is the case:
>
> > www.linuxjournal.com/article/6366
> > "A derivative work is a work based upon one or more pre-existing
> > works, such as a translation . . . A work consisting of editorial
> > revisions, annotations, elaborations or other modifications which, as a
> > whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a derivative
> work."
>
>
> > en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License
> > "The GPL is clear in requiring that all derivative works of code under
> > the GPL must themselves be under the GPL."
>
> Larry should reply to this, I think, but he isn't on this list.

Larry, your advise will be highly appreciated :)

Cheers,

Mori
>
>
> I've put him in CC.
>
> Cheers,
>     Gerhard
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[Gerhard Killesreiter]

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Mori Sugimoto schrieb:

> Gerhard Killesreiter wrote:
>> Mori Sugimoto schrieb:
>>> Hi,
>>> Sorry this may be an FAQ, but I couldn't find any answers to this:
>>> I'm wondering if we are allowed to claim copyright to translations
>>> (and .po files) of any strings in Drupal and its core / contrib
>>> modules.  I noticed many .po files come with a copyright notice at
>>> the top of the files, but since Drupal is licensed under GPL, my
>>> understanding is that .po files are derivatives and thus they cannot
>>> be copyrighted.

>> Even GPLed code is copyrighted. :)

> Yes, as it is declared in the COPYRIGHT.txt: "All Drupal code is
> Copyright 2001 - 2008 by the original authors."  This means unless
> the translator is also the copyright holder (i.e. the person who
> wrote the code), they cannot claim copyright for the translation. Am
> I correct?

No, I don't think you are. Regardless of the GPL a translation (if it
is more than just technical) certainly can be copyrighted. If a
PO-file translation of short strings like in Drupal is copyrightable
at all can be debated. The threshold of origiinality might not be
crossed.

Cheers,
        Gerhard
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[Gerhard Killesreiter]

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larry@... schrieb:

> 1) Anything in Drupal CVS is under the GPL.  The copyright is held by
> all kinds of people, but the license is the GPL.  That includes all
> translatable strings.
>
> 2) A translation is a derivative work of the work being translated.  In
> this case, the work being translated is Drupal.
>
> 3) Derivative works of a GPLed work must be distributed under the GPL if
> they are distributed.
>
> 4apply.
>
> 4a) If that is the case, then neither the original string nor the
> translation of it are subject to copyright and so a copyright notice is
> inappropriate.
>
> 4b) If that is not the case, then the original text is copyrighted its
> original author and released under the GPL and the translation, as a
> derivative work, must also be under the GPL.  Claiming a copyright on
> the translation is valid, but it still must be distributed under the GPL.
>

Thanks!

> Drupal's CVS policy is to not state a copyright or authorship on
> anything, since most code gets so many people working on it that
> separating out who did what is infeasible.  Commit messages should
> specify credit.  Therefore, po files in CVS should follow the same
> convention as code: Don't specify an author or a copyright or a license
> in the file itself and let the packaging system add a LICENSE.txt file
> as appropriate.

While I agree, this is a bit impractical. The copyright notices in the
PO files are usually added by the PO translator software. While it is
possible to remove them (man vi), most translators might not know how.

In fact, our own extractor.php adds this to the header of the files:

    $output  = "# LANGUAGE translation of Drupal (". $file .")\n";
    $output .= "# Copyright YEAR NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n";

Since they do not claim something that is not true, I suggest to ignore
them.

Cheers,
        Gerhard
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[Mori Sugimoto]

A brilliant answer (on the whole copyright issue) and insight (on
impracticality of removing the notice). Thank you *very* much Larry and
Gerhard!

Cheers,

Mori

Gerhard Killesreiter wrote:

> larry@... schrieb:
> > 1) Anything in Drupal CVS is under the GPL.  The copyright is held by
> > all kinds of people, but the license is the GPL.  That includes all
> > translatable strings.
>
> > 2) A translation is a derivative work of the work being translated.  In
> > this case, the work being translated is Drupal.
>
> > 3) Derivative works of a GPLed work must be distributed under the GPL if
> > they are distributed.
>
> > 4apply.
>
> > 4a) If that is the case, then neither the original string nor the
> > translation of it are subject to copyright and so a copyright notice is
> > inappropriate.
>
> > 4b) If that is not the case, then the original text is copyrighted its
> > original author and released under the GPL and the translation, as a
> > derivative work, must also be under the GPL.  Claiming a copyright on
> > the translation is valid, but it still must be distributed under the
> GPL.
>
>
> Thanks!
>
> > Drupal's CVS policy is to not state a copyright or authorship on
> > anything, since most code gets so many people working on it that
> > separating out who did what is infeasible.  Commit messages should
> > specify credit.  Therefore, po files in CVS should follow the same
> > convention as code: Don't specify an author or a copyright or a license
> > in the file itself and let the packaging system add a LICENSE.txt file
> > as appropriate.
>
> While I agree, this is a bit impractical. The copyright notices in the
> PO files are usually added by the PO translator software. While it is
> possible to remove them (man vi), most translators might not know how.
>
> In fact, our own extractor.php adds this to the header of the files:
>
>     $output  = "# LANGUAGE translation of Drupal (". $file .")\n";
>     $output .= "# Copyright YEAR NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n";
>
> Since they do not claim something that is not true, I suggest to ignore
> them.
>
> Cheers,
>     Gerhard

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[Gerhard Killesreiter]

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larry@... schrieb:

> Gerhard Killesreiter wrote:
>
>>> Drupal's CVS policy is to not state a copyright or authorship on
>>> anything, since most code gets so many people working on it that
>>> separating out who did what is infeasible.  Commit messages should
>>> specify credit.  Therefore, po files in CVS should follow the same
>>> convention as code: Don't specify an author or a copyright or a license
>>> in the file itself and let the packaging system add a LICENSE.txt file
>>> as appropriate.
>>
>> While I agree, this is a bit impractical. The copyright notices in the
>> PO files are usually added by the PO translator software. While it is
>> possible to remove them (man vi), most translators might not know how.
>>
>> In fact, our own extractor.php adds this to the header of the files:
>>
>>     $output  = "# LANGUAGE translation of Drupal (". $file .")\n";
>>     $output .= "# Copyright YEAR NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n";
>>
>> Since they do not claim something that is not true, I suggest to ignore
>> them.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>     Gerhard
>
> Well they may become untrue over time if multiple people work on a given
> PO file.  That's why PHP files do not carry an author identification.  I
> do not know the usual workflow for PO files well enough to say if it is
> a valid concern there, so will defer to Gerhard on the enforcement front.

Thank you so much. :p

I guess a good policy would be to place something like "the Drupal
translators for foo language" in that line.

Realistically I've no time to enforce this at all.

But maybe Mori would like to draw up some policy that we can add to the
translators' handbook.

Cheers,
        Gerhard
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[Mori Sugimoto]

Gerhard Killesreiter wrote:

> larry@... schrieb:
> > Gerhard Killesreiter wrote:
>
> >>> Drupal's CVS policy is to not state a copyright or authorship on
> >>> anything, since most code gets so many people working on it that
> >>> separating out who did what is infeasible.  Commit messages should
> >>> specify credit.  Therefore, po files in CVS should follow the same
> >>> convention as code: Don't specify an author or a copyright or a
> license
> >>> in the file itself and let the packaging system add a LICENSE.txt file
> >>> as appropriate.
> >> While I agree, this is a bit impractical. The copyright notices in the
> >> PO files are usually added by the PO translator software. While it is
> >> possible to remove them (man vi), most translators might not know how.
> >>
> >> In fact, our own extractor.php adds this to the header of the files:
> >>
> >>     $output  = "# LANGUAGE translation of Drupal (". $file .")\n";
> >>     $output .= "# Copyright YEAR NAME <EMAIL@ADDRESS>\n";
> >>
> >> Since they do not claim something that is not true, I suggest to ignore
> >> them.
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >>     Gerhard
> > Well they may become untrue over time if multiple people work on a given
> > PO file.  That's why PHP files do not carry an author identification.  I
> > do not know the usual workflow for PO files well enough to say if it is
> > a valid concern there, so will defer to Gerhard on the enforcement
> front.
>
> Thank you so much. :p
>
> I guess a good policy would be to place something like "the Drupal
> translators for foo language" in that line.
>
> Realistically I've no time to enforce this at all.
>
> But maybe Mori would like to draw up some policy that we can add to the
> translators' handbook.

That's *exactly* what I was thinking! :)

Mori
>
> Cheers,
>     Gerhard
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[Gábor Hojtsy-2]

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 12:09 AM, Gerhard
Killesreiter<gerhard@...> wrote:
> I guess a good policy would be to place something like "the Drupal
> translators for foo language" in that line.
>
> Realistically I've no time to enforce this at all.

Historically the Hungarian team used "Copyright 2006 by the Hungarian
Translation Team" or something like that. There were quite a few
debates on wording of certain translations that we felt originality
can be claimed :) Also, I've been removing individual names and
converting them to this generic format, as I found them.

Gábor
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[Mori Sugimoto]

Thanks for the info Gábor. Your argument about originality is interesting.

The reason for asking this question is that one of local user groups in
Japan are planning on setting up a l10n server to facilitate translation
of modules. My aim is to prevent anyone, including the group who will
host the l10n server, from claiming ownership of the fruits of
collaboration.
We have a long history of conflicts among local user groups (sigh) and
people tend to be sceptical when this kind of collaboration effort is
attempted. I would like to wither such scepticism by removing elements
that potentially benefit certain individuals / group so people can hop
in and work together without a concern.


Mori


Gábor Hojtsy wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 12:09 AM, Gerhard
> Killesreiter<gerhard@...> wrote:
>  
>> I guess a good policy would be to place something like "the Drupal
>> translators for foo language" in that line.
>>
>> Realistically I've no time to enforce this at all.
>>    
>
> Historically the Hungarian team used "Copyright 2006 by the Hungarian
> Translation Team" or something like that. There were quite a few
> debates on wording of certain translations that we felt originality
> can be claimed :) Also, I've been removing individual names and
> converting them to this generic format, as I found them.
>
> Gábor
> _______________________________________________
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> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/translations
>  

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