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Posted to docs@httpd.apache.org by "William A. Rowe, Jr." <wr...@apache.org> on 2003/08/20 20:17:48 UTC
Re: ja translation [LICENSE]
Tetsuya,
This has come recently - from the perspective that the license may
not be enforceable in some jurisdictions without a native translation.
At some point translations might become necessary.
On the other hand, you are right, it is very controversial, in that one
minor issue in a single translation could weaken that provision across
all translations, or worse.
This actually falls under the scope of the licensing committee, so
I urge you to subscribe (please cc Tetsuya on this thread for now)
via licensing-subscribe@apache.org. It's a limited access list, but
we have several non-ASF lawyers participating in the list, and would
welcome additional source-licensing contributors to the discussion,
especially from other, non-western European jurisdictions. If one of
your Japanese legal friends might be interested, please let us know
It seems that the ASFL 2.0 makes more sense for translation, since
we will be adopting it across the board.
One approach is to brand this as a Translation, with some words that
"The official license can be obtained from ____ in it's official English
form. This translation has been provided as a convenience for the reader,
and is not binding upon the Apache Software Foundation or yourself.
The official license in English is the only valid license that grants you
rights to use A.S.F. Software. You should consult with your own
legal consul if you have any questions."
Or something like that, one of our legal-eagles could do better than I.
Bill
>Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 00:47:05 +0900
>From: Tetsuya Kitahata <te...@apache.org>
>To: docs@httpd.apache.org
>Subject: Re: ja translation new comer
>
>I've created the "manual/license.xml" translation (into japanese).
>
>I think the "license" file could be one of the controversial
>issues, regarding the "accuracy" of the translation. If you
>need "assurance" of the quality of the translation, I am
>willing to put the confirmation of laywers in japan (my friends),
>sooner or later.
>
>-- Tetsuya Kitahata. (tetsuya@apache.org)
>
>Index: license.xml.meta
>===================================================================
>RCS file: /home/cvspublic/httpd-2.0/docs/manual/license.xml.meta,v
>retrieving revision 1.1
>diff -u -r1.1 license.xml.meta
>--- license.xml.meta 11 Apr 2003 19:47:24 -0000 1.1
>+++ license.xml.meta 20 Aug 2003 15:35:40 -0000
>@@ -7,5 +7,6 @@
>
> <variants>
> <variant>en</variant>
>+ <variant>ja</variant>
> </variants>
> </metafile>
Re: ja translation [LICENSE]
Posted by Tetsuya Kitahata <te...@apache.org>.
Hello!
(I moved the *thread* here, in order to CC to licensing@apache)
On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 22:45:07 +0200 (CEST)
(Subject: Re: ja translation new comer)
Dirk-Willem van Gulik <di...@webweaving.org> wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Aug 2003, William A. Rowe, Jr. wrote:
> > >I think the "license" file could be one of the controversial
> > >issues, regarding the "accuracy" of the translation. If you
> > >need "assurance" of the quality of the translation, I am
> > >willing to put the confirmation of laywers in japan (my friends),
> > >sooner or later.
> >
> > This has come up - from the perspective that the license may not
> > be enforceable in some jurisdictions without the native translation.
> > At some point translations might become necessary.
> Eh - you want to be preceice here; generally when you have two
> entities who are both in X then you want to make sure that their
> agrement is constructed according to X law and habits. If the entities
> are in X and Y then generally the law and language of the license
> granter is used (or the Seller, etc - there is a whole international
> law framework specially for this). So, say, a German developer using
> the GPL for his code , may well need a german version. We may have
> this issue when we accept code from a third party in Germany.
> However... the apache end user license is 'special' in that it is an
> agreement with the Apache Software Foundation, a Delaware, US Inc to
> some other entity. So for _us_ (not for the general open source case)
> we are fine with a License written in the US langauge and within the
> US framework - and though it is nice to have translations to _explain_
> the license; the authoritative document of the Apache Software
> Foundation is, and will be, in US English only.
Yes, yes.
1)
The Apache Software Foundation is based on Delaware, so
the judicial jurisdiction of the lawsuit between the ASF
and third parties should be "Delaware, USA" and Code should be in
conformity to the Law of Delaware. In this situation, ASL written
in English *only* will be used in general.
# This is *ASF* vs. third party case
2)
And, the judicial jurisdiction of the lawsuit between a company in Japan
(Software Vendor/ using software which contains products derived
from ASL) and that in Germany (End User) will be described
in their agreement when they make a contract. "lex causae" might
be also implied in their agreement. In this situation, ASL written
in English is "authoritative" and (in general) written in German and
Japanese languages (translations) will be used for reference.
# This is third party vs. third party case
3)
And, the judicial jurisdiction of the lawsuit between two company based
on Japan (Software Vendor/ using software which contains products
derived from ASL and End User) will be "Japan". "lex causae" will be
Japanese Laws with no doubt. (To be precise, they can choose whatever
they want in the agreement ... though) In this situation, ASL written
in English is "authoritative" and (in general) written in Japanese
language (translation) will be used for reference... However,
from the view of *normal business practice*, ASL written in Japanese
will be authoritative compared to the case described above 2),
because they've read ASL in Japanese when they make a contract with
each other. They can not fall into an error in the process of the
interpretation of the ASL.
# This is third party vs. third party case, too.
--
# Especially case 3) ... 2) in some cases
In normal business practice, end users do not want to read license
agreement in English. (Power politics of vendors vs. end users :)
They (especially, vendors) want/need Japanese translated one, because
end users tend not to adopt any software products which only have
documents written in English as well as license. And, if there's
no translation (for reference), vendors or end users have to
translate ASL in their own way... there will be *many* subspecific
japanized/germanized ASL!! ;-)
In this situation, formal translation (not authoritative), formalized
by the ASF, can be important in order to make their business more
facilitated and less controversial.
--
In my mind, this below can make sense:
1. AUTHORITATIVE: ASL written in English
2. FORMAL TRANSLATIONS: ASL written in other languages and formalized
by the ASF
3. INFORMAL TRANSLATIONS: derivatives not formalized by the ASF
--
So, I want to make LICENSEs translated into Japanese and any
other languages, and want them to be formalized by the ASF.
(Also, put them in the apache.org sites for reference)
Make sense?
-----------------------------------------------------
Tetsuya Kitahata -- Terra-International, Inc. (based on Hawaii ;-)
E-mail: tetsuya@apache.org http://www.terra-intl.com/
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Re: ja translation [LICENSE]
Posted by Tetsuya Kitahata <te...@apache.org>.
Hello,
CC: ASF Licensing Team (license@apache)
On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 13:17:48 -0500
"William A. Rowe, Jr." <wr...@apache.org> wrote:
> Tetsuya,
> This has come recently - from the perspective that the license may
> not be enforceable in some jurisdictions without a native translation.
> At some point translations might become necessary.
For example, if a Japanese company who is using the products derived
from the products under ASL (Apache Software License) has legal
problem with another Japanese company, would they consult the
English version of ASL at first? If there would be a japanese
translated ASL, I think it could be useful and less controversial
for them.
I think we (apache) need the "official" translation somehow or other.
> On the other hand, you are right, it is very controversial, in that one
> minor issue in a single translation could weaken that provision across
> all translations, or worse.
Strongly agree. There must be a plain and strict guideline for this,
I suppose. Otherwise, there could be many subspecies in japanese ones ;-)
Also, if we (apache) provide the other languages' version of the
translations, there must be a strict guideline.
> This actually falls under the scope of the licensing committee, so
> I urge you to subscribe (please cc Tetsuya on this thread for now)
> via licensing-subscribe at apache.org. It's a limited access list, but
> we have several non-ASF lawyers participating in the list, and would
> welcome additional source-licensing contributors to the discussion,
> especially from other, non-western European jurisdictions. If one of
> your Japanese legal friends might be interested, please let us know
Yes, i see. there are some laywers who have much concern with not only
ASL but also (L)GPL et al. For example, now our government have much
interests on the (L)GPL and ASL and the relations between them and
the Civil Code in Japan (How to interpret these license in our Civil
Code). These could be a law of nature in the growth of the OSSs.
> It seems that the ASFL 2.0 makes more sense for translation, since
> we will be adopting it across the board.
Okay
> One approach is to brand this as a Translation, with some words that
>
> "The official license can be obtained from ____ in it's official English
> form. This translation has been provided as a convenience for the reader,
> and is not binding upon the Apache Software Foundation or yourself.
> The official license in English is the only valid license that grants you
> rights to use A.S.F. Software. You should consult with your own
> legal consul if you have any questions."
Yes, make sense. But, on the other hand, "their" consuls will be
able to make one "official" (but translated) license in Japanese,
I guess .... make sense??
> Or something like that, one of our legal-eagles could do better than I.
Okay. I'll have a conversation with those eagles :) later.
Anyway, this issue could be ASF-wide.
> Bill
Sincerely,
-- Tetsuya. (tetsuya@apache.org)
P.S. Now i am in the process of the subscription to
licensing@apache. >> Moderators of licensing@apache.
--
> >Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 00:47:05 +0900
> >From: Tetsuya Kitahata <te...@apache.org>
> >To: docs@httpd.apache.org
> >Subject: Re: ja translation new comer
> >
> >I've created the "manual/license.xml" translation (into japanese).
> >
> >I think the "license" file could be one of the controversial
> >issues, regarding the "accuracy" of the translation. If you
> >need "assurance" of the quality of the translation, I am
> >willing to put the confirmation of laywers in japan (my friends),
> >sooner or later.
> >
> >-- Tetsuya Kitahata. (tetsuya@apache.org)
> >
> >Index: license.xml.meta
> >===================================================================
> >RCS file: /home/cvspublic/httpd-2.0/docs/manual/license.xml.meta,v
> >retrieving revision 1.1
> >diff -u -r1.1 license.xml.meta
> >--- license.xml.meta 11 Apr 2003 19:47:24 -0000 1.1
> >+++ license.xml.meta 20 Aug 2003 15:35:40 -0000
> >@@ -7,5 +7,6 @@
> >
> > <variants>
> > <variant>en</variant>
> >+ <variant>ja</variant>
> > </variants>
> > </metafile>
-----------------------------------------------------
Tetsuya Kitahata -- Terra-International, Inc.
E-mail: tetsuya@apache.org
http://www.terra-intl.com/
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