[I am not subscribed to debian-i18n, please Cc me on replies]
Hi,
while reviewing the aide package for writing a machine-readable debian/copyright file, I have stumbled up on the translations.
https://salsa.debian.org/debian/aide/-/tree/master/debian/po
Oh, what a mess.
Boilerplate headers that have not been filled out, licenseless files, po files putting the aide translation under the same license as the postfix package (an obvious cut&paste error). Most of the files have not been
touched for a decade, and I doubt that the original translators are
still around. The good side is that the Debconf templates have also been stable since 2006.
What am I supposed to do to get the translations
- reviewed
- properly filled out
- properly licensed to a license that actually fits the package?
Is there a mechanism that saves me from talking to each and every
language mailing list, some of them looking as if the inhabitants have a
very well thought out subject tagging method.
Can I safely assume that a translation without an explicit license was
meant to be licensed with the package, which would be GPL-2+ in this
case?
Helo Marc,
On Tue, Jan 19, 2021 at 04:32:04PM +0100, Marc Haber wrote:
[I am not subscribed to debian-i18n, please Cc me on replies]
Hi,
while reviewing the aide package for writing a machine-readable
debian/copyright file, I have stumbled up on the translations.
https://salsa.debian.org/debian/aide/-/tree/master/debian/po
Oh, what a mess.
Welcome in the world if i18n. Really, this is, unfortunately, quite
common. I've faced similar endavors like you did.
Boilerplate headers that have not been filled out, licenseless files, po
files putting the aide translation under the same license as the postfix
package (an obvious cut&paste error). Most of the files have not been
touched for a decade, and I doubt that the original translators are
still around. The good side is that the Debconf templates have also been
stable since 2006.
What am I supposed to do to get the translations
- reviewed
- properly filled out
- properly licensed to a license that actually fits the package?
You can most certainly do this, but is it really worth the effort?
Is there a mechanism that saves me from talking to each and every
language mailing list, some of them looking as if the inhabitants have a
very well thought out subject tagging method.
Well, I would first start using podebconf-report-po(1). You can tweak
the message to your liking, explaining what you want to achieve. This
is necessary, as 100% files are usually not necessarily reviewed again
or even considered (given the huge volume of work for l10n teams still ahead).
But first check the headers if the translation lists are filled out
properly (i.e. exist).
Can I safely assume that a translation without an explicit license was
meant to be licensed with the package, which would be GPL-2+ in this
case?
I do not know, I'm not a lawyer. You might check on debian-legal for
this.
Greetings
Helge
You can most certainly do this, but is it really worth the effort?
In the aide/debian/po/templates.pot file, it is written "This file is distributed under the same license as the PACKAGE package." that is the
usual statement for most of the debconf.po files. So, I think it is just needed to add this line, replacing "PACKAGE" with "aide".
As said Helge, you can ask to the translation teams to do that and to
review the translation : in French, there is an issue with the text
encoding.
Sysop: | Keyop |
---|---|
Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
Users: | 343 |
Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
Uptime: | 29:04:29 |
Calls: | 7,513 |
Calls today: | 10 |
Files: | 12,713 |
Messages: | 5,642,040 |
Posted today: | 2 |