Re: Albanian and Turkmen Teams

[Danilo Segan <danilo gnome org>]

Hi Ghorban,

Ghorban Mohamad Tavakkoli <gmtavakkoli@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> Well, they are saying that they sow my name in
> localization forums and they were trying to make a
> universal Turkmen National operating system and that
> Turkish goverment payed them 1 million dollars.
> (I actually don't believe that). They say they want
> to communicate with me. They are the firm that
> creates software. They want some information about
> me. And they want to work on Translation Project
> together with me. And finally they say that they
> would be glad if i share the coordinator field in
> Gnome Translation project web page with them.

GTP has a practice of one coordinator per translation team --
reasoning behind that should be obvious (avoiding conflicts --
they're resolved inside local teams).  Also, a coordinator must be a
real person.

> Here is what I think. They are a commercial company
> that wants to translate Gnome or other software to
> Turkmen and sell it in Turkmenia. Thus, make profit.

I don't see anything wrong with them selling translated Gnome, if
they follow all the licences of the software included with Gnome
(basically, if they follow GPL terms for all of Gnome, no problem
there; some parts may be available under "looser" licences).

> I think we should not share any of our accounts with
> them.

My opinion is that you (as "our" coordinator for Turkmen translations)
should decide whether you want to cooperate with them, so if your
opinion is that you should not work with them, that's my opinion as
well ;) 

Of course, GTP has general interest in making Gnome localized into as
many languages as possible.  OTOH, since you've just started, I don't
see a reason not to trust you (at least not any more than anyone else
who comes across).

Basically, I'd like to make this "internal issue for Turkmen
translation team" -- with you being the coordinator, it's your call.
My answers here serve only to help you (or make it more difficult for
you :) make the right decisions.

Other members (and potential members) of Turkmen translation team
should turn directly to GTP only if they consider the work currently
done by you inadequate, and you cannot resolve it between yourselves.
With you being this short with GTP, I don't see anything to back any
complaint.

> I would unfortunately not share any ideas or manpower
> with the commercially interested company. if they
> realy want to translate GNOME [without any
> commerical interedt], thay can work with me.

Again, you should not worry about someone making money of Gnome --
that happens all the time.  The real criteria here should be whether
they're willing to respect our ideals of preserving freedom and
contributing back to the community -- freedom which empowers every
other user which might not be their direct customer, to benefit from
translations and improvements they have done.

I'd urge you to try to educate them on our ideals of free software,
invite them to help you with Turkmen translations, and agree on the
best policy for doing the work.

> fianlly please forgive me for publishing their
> mail. it is only for our threated freedom.

I don't think that was the right thing to do -- we do not need proofs
of what they said, and what they didn't say.  We're trying to base our
cooperation on trust as much as possible, so simply expressing your
concerns would be enough here.  Yes, trust means open dialog as well,
but if one didn't intend a message to be announced to wider public,
other should probably not do that unless explicitely allowed.

Again, usual disclaimer of this being my personal opinion applies.

Cheers,
Danilo