Paulo Alexandre Pinto Pires <p@ppires.org> writes:
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 10:23:54AM -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
>> 
>> Andy R <quadreverb@yahoo.com> writes:
>> > Is there any reason why not to translate the
>> > copyright?
>> 
>> 1) The original is the legal license, not the translation.
>> 2) Unless the translator is a specialist in translating legal
>>    paperwork, they'll get terminology wrong.
>> 3) The original is the legal license, not the translation.
>
> Your restating makes me think you consider it very important, but
> I don't really understand what you _mean_.  The copyright is not
> strictly a license, is it?

It is. What we call the "copyright" is in fact a license -- the
"copyright" itself is just an abstract notion, represented by the
words "Copyright 2004 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc."

> Besides, the most important point in
> any license or copyright information is (IMO) to make it perfectly
> clear to the user/reader/victim what rights he has,

No. That's not true at all. The law is not about making things
perfectly clear to the reader. The law is about making things legally
enforceable by lawyers. The two have no relationship whatsoever.

Lets say you sign a contract that has language about "waiving your
right of subrogation". You have no idea what subrogation is. Does the
fact that you don't understand that phrase make the contract any less
enforceable? Not in the least. Does the fact that no one outside of
the legal profession uses the word make the contract less enforceable?
Of course not. Would any lawyer hesitate for a second to put words
like that into a contract simply because normal people have no idea
what they mean? No lawyer would hesitate for a moment.

> Wrong terminology can certainly be a problem, but the writers/coders
> in our community, who produce original texts and source code (including
> their copyright/license/disclaimers notes), are most likely not law
> experts in their language/country, either, so it is very likely that
> some of our current practices can be wrong from the very beginning.

The official grant of rights is the version written in English by
lawyers. (Yes, it was not written by programmers.) It should not be
tampered with without advice from lawyers, and translation (other than
unofficial translation) is a form of tampering.

> Writers and translators of what is in htdocs are not generally emp-
> loyees of The NetBSD Foundation, but give it not only the copyright
> but also full rights reservation on material they contribute.

That's because they generally sign a copyright assignment form.

-- 
Perry E. Metzger		perry@piermont.com