Re: unifying copyright entries

[Ole Laursen <olau hardworking dk>]

Nilgün Belma Bugüner <nilgun@superonline.com> writes:
> >
> > "This file is distributed under the same license as the PACKAGE package."
> 
> Neither I, as the translator, nor the package maintainer can reasonably 
> put the sentence above in the file, since it would mean usurping the 
> copyright on the portions of the file that the other party has claim to.

Are you sure about that? It seems to me that the English texts are
already under the license of the PACKAGE by being extracted from it.
So only the translator provided parts experience a change?

> This header simply assigns the copyright to the package maintainer. I do 
> not believe such a simple copyright assignment is valid -- this is the 
> reason why FSF obtains a disclaimer from every translator, with a real 
> signature. If the translator were to later change his/her mind, I am 
> fairly sure the above header would not be of any use.

I don't know. Isn't an oral agreement as good as a written one? If you
can show that a translator has accepted the license by submitting his
translation, wouldn't that be enough, unless the translator can prove
that he was deceived or something like that?

Of course, in any case, dealing with written assignments is much
easier in court.

-- 
Ole Laursen
http://www.cs.auc.dk/~olau/