free as in beer (was Re: Clean Sheet?)

[Dionisio Martínez Soler]

Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
> 
>> Why this could be possibly be necessary if Canonical doesn't want to use
>> those translation in software with non-free licences? This paragraph is
>> suspect to anyone working with free software.
> 
> 
> There are many pieces of software that are available under a dual 
> licence - for example MySQL, Qt and others are both GPL and commercial. 
> Without this clause, the translation is useless for upstreams of such 
> projects since were unable to provide them with a translation they can 
> use freely.

So, the clause may say: "In addition, the translator grants to *the
proprietary of the software being translated*
the right to publish the translation and use the translation in *the
software being translated*
under all the licenses of this software."
or something like that. Probably this is not a good formula (I'm not a
native english speaker nor a lawyer), but you get the idea.

If you say: "the translator grants to *Canonical Ltd.* the right to
publish the translation and use the translation in *other software
packages* under their license.", that means that Canonical itself can
create new software packages with licences different from those of
upstreams projects (ANY licence) and use the translations in them. This
is quite different from giving the right to upstreams authors to
continue a PRIOR policy of dual licence, I think. For example, Canonical
could publish a commercial non-free multilingual dictionary or automatic
translator of computer terms based on the work of contributors to Rosetta...

> 
> The main thing to look out for is that the licence of the software you 
> are translating meets your definition of free. Then your translations 
> are automatically available under that free licence, which cannot be 
> undone.
> 

Right, if Canonical itself is not given any right over the translation.

By the way, if I were translating Rosetta itself... what would be its
licence?

Thank you for your answer. Please, publish all the legal information
about Rosetta ASAP. I think this is one of the most interesting projects
for multilingualism and free software, that's why I'd like to know what
its legal status is, and I'd like to see this status publicy and clearly
available to anyone interested in it.

Regards,

Dionisio Martínez Soler