Should we really translate legal notices?

[Ihar Hrachyshka <ihar hrachyshka gmail com>]

Hello!

I'd like to raise a question which was already discussed in gnome-i18n
with no end result [1] in legal-list gnome org hence this email.

Recently one of Gnome localizers, Andika Triwidada, asked in gnome-i18n
if we should really translate legal notices found in Gnome software
translation catalogues. He stated that there is a policy for this in
Fedora Project [2] which states that asks translators not to translate
legal notices since such translations are risky if not approved by
professional lawyers (which is of course not the case for 99% of Gnome
translations).

Localization participants tried to find any related policy on Gnome Wiki
pages with no success. Some translators stated that they translate
everything put in translation catalogues, legal notices included.

It would be great if Gnome legal experts will discuss this problem in
more detail and end up with final policy for translators.

Below are some examples of such translation messages. They are quite
common in Gnome applications translation catalogues.

#: ../src/brasero-app.c:1153
msgid ""
"Brasero is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the "
"terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software "
"Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later "
"version."
msgstr ""

#: ../src/brasero-app.c:1158
msgid ""
"Brasero is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY "
"WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS "
"FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more "
"details."
msgstr ""

#: ../src/brasero-app.c:1163
msgid ""
"You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with "
"Brasero; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin "
"Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA"
msgstr ""

[1]: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-i18n/2010-April/msg00193.html
[2]:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/L10N/FAQ#Should_I_translate_legal_notices.3F