Translations are derivative works, which means that Nick doesn't "own" the
file in quite the same way that he would if it was an original work. If
Subversion were GPL-licensed, for example, his translation could only be
released under the GPL. He can't assign the copyright to just anyone,
since assignment requires original ownership; but he can release it under
a license that allows us to incorporate it into the Subversion codebase,
as it seems he has done. Or, he can implicitly assign his extra work back
to the origin he derived from by putting the standard licensing text at
the top.
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.html
http://www.lbl.gov/Workplace/patent/ch9.html
Canonical's requirement that the translations be under the same license as
the software being translated is one way to enforce this, since all Open
Source licenses allow derivative works under the same license. The
question is what this project's policies are for contributions, copyright
holdership, etc. IMHO, by posting the translation to this list, Nick gave
an implicit grant of redistribution under our standard policies.
IANAL,
Brian
On Wed, 30 Aug 2006, David James wrote:
> I don't think this is a problem. Quoting https://launchpad.net/legal:
>
> "All translations imported from external sources are owned by the
> translator that made them. In general, these translations are licensed
> under the same terms as the software for which they are a
> translation."
>
> Further, "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. 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."
>
> Since Nick translated the file, he owns it, so he can assign the
> copyright to anyone he likes.
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
>
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Received on Thu Sep 7 05:28:07 2006