Re: KACST translation/Arabeyes

[Muhammad Alkarouri <malkarouri at yahoo dot co dot uk>]

I am almost as a foreigner to this topic as you, MElzubeir, so I am no
speaker for Munzir/KACST. I wanted to understand the situation.

On Wed, 2004-06-23 at 17:42, Mohammed Elzubeir wrote:
[...]
> > - Rather than doing that on their own, they want to do this through
> > Arabeyes.
> 
> "Rather than"? The natural thing is to do it with the existing
> translation team -- this is how it works with all projects we are
> involved with. In this case, it happens to be Arabeyes. If someone wants
> to say, you know what, KDE's translation is crap, we will re-do the
> whole thing, there's nothing that can stop them. However, only Arabeyes'
> translations will be part of the official KDE release. I am only
> mentining KDE as an example, this would apply to all projects.
> 
> In this case, going to Arabeyes is the natural process. It also happens
> to be the most beneficial to their objectives and ours. Everyone goes
> home with a prize.

+1

> > 
> > Now I think some points should be clarified.
> > - All these contributions are open source, GPL, am I right?
> 
> They are open source, yes -- as with everything on arabeyes.org.
> 

I actually wanted the confirmation from the KACST side, but Munzir has
already mentioned that on a previous e-mail.

> > - KACST will have the copyright on the translations. (I notice that
> > currently the translations are copyrighted to the individual
> > translators, though the Language-Team is Arabic <doc at arabeyes dot org>).
> 
> I am not so sure about that. More on this below.

I didn't get that.

> 
> > 
> > [..]
> >
> > As for individuals in the team registering on their own, you are
> > bypassing the external institution, which naturally claims more credit
> > and responsibility for paying and sparing them for this job than them.
> 
> Yes, they are responsible for their employees, but Arabeyes is
> ultimately responsible for the translations.
> 

The responsible entity is usually the copyright owner legally. More on
this below.

> > They may not have the expertise necessary to use cvs, but the instituion
> 
> As I have suggested to Munzir, I think this is a non-issue. He is
> physically there, so he can setup the appropriate environment. The issue
> with CVS vs. credits should not be mixed together. 

+1

> This however, if you will note, Munzir has failed to express those
> issues and we ended up in a "I want to conceal my identity" debate. 

That is why I sent the e-mail, trying for a fuller explanation. Though I
believe things are now clearer, Munzir should actually fill in any
details.


Now I have reached the end of the e-mail, and I didn't get your point on
the copyright issue. About the point I have got about the translations
copyright being attributed to the individual translators, I said that
after I checked some files. Examples:
n the fedora translations (I checked only the first file: anaconda.po)
at
http://cvs.arabeyes.org/viewcvs/translate/fedora/anaconda.po?rev=1.27&content-type=text/vnd.viewcvs-markup
you find:
# translation of anaconda.po to Arabic
# Arabeyes translation of Fedora.
# Copyright (C) 2004 THE PACKAGE'S COPYRIGHT HOLDER
# This file is distributed under the same license as the PACKAGE package.
# Ossama M. Khayat <okhayat at yahoo dot com>, 2004.
# Youcef Rabah Rahal <rahal at arabeyes dot org>, 2004.

which is usually interpreted as the copyright attributed to Ossama and
Yousef.

And in Debian, also the first file:
# translation of console-data_debian_po.po to Arabic
#
#    Translators, if you are not familiar with the PO format, gettext
#    documentation is worth reading, especially sections dedicated to
#    this format, e.g. by running:
#         info -n '(gettext)PO Files'
#         info -n '(gettext)Header Entry'
#    Some information specific to po-debconf are available at
#            /usr/share/doc/po-debconf/README-trans
#         or http://www.debian.org/intl/l10n/po-debconf/README-trans#
#    Developers do not need to manually edit POT or PO files.
# Ossama M. Khayat <okhayat at yahoo dot com>, 2004.
# Abdulaziz Al-Arfaj <alarfaj0 at yahoo dot com>, 2004.

In these file, copyrights are assigned to THE PACKAGE'S COPYRIGHT HOLDER
and the individual translators. As in the translator's guide, it should
be:

# translation of desktop_kde-i18n.po to Arabic
# desktop.po - Arabic Translation.
# Copyright (C) 2001,2002,2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
# Name1 Surname1 <A_address/@domain_1.com>, 2001.
# Name2 Surname2 <B_address/@domain_2.net>, 2002
# Name3 Surname3 <C_address/@domain_3.org>, 2002,2003

which assigns the copyright to the FSF and the individual translators,
with no Arabeyes mention. This makes them liable legally for their work,
not Arabeyes.

If the copyright should be attributed to Arabeyes, this should be
changed.

Do you suggest I file this as a bug, in the translators' guide? I am not
inclined to submit a bug for every translation team also. Suggestions?

Salam,
Muhammad Alkarouri