On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 11:38 AM, James Alexander jalexander@wikimedia.orgwrote:
I'm not sure what to suggest.. IANAL either and no one else seems to be engaging in this conversation :-S Kenan / Juliusz (I think you follow this list) - might be worth you following up with legal and raising a bug if necessary? Or maybe Amir, you should raise a bug and we could get someone from legals' opinion/
[Was not previously a list subscriber; have done that now. Thanks to James Alexander for bringing this to my attention.]
Kenan and I (along with other members of product and design) have been looking at this language for a while to try to improve it. #1 on my list is definitely to say "agree to irrevocably release" instead of "irrevocably agree to release". :) The legal meaning is essentially the same but the new wording would be clearer.
That said, we're thinking about rewriting a lot of the copyright language stuff to make it more clear (and hopefully shorter to boot!) so it don't think it is a high priority to rewrite/revise this - it may be completely revised/reorganized in the next few months anyway.
Hope that helps- Luis
Thanks a lot for this answer, Luis.
I'm glad that you plan to make a through rewording of the legal strings. When you get around to it, please ask Language Engineering - we'd love to help making not only readable, but easier to translate as well. בתאריך 30 בינו 2014 21:51, מאת "Luis Villa" lvilla@wikimedia.org:
On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 11:38 AM, James Alexander < jalexander@wikimedia.org> wrote:
I'm not sure what to suggest.. IANAL either and no one else seems to be engaging in this conversation :-S Kenan / Juliusz (I think you follow this list) - might be worth you following up with legal and raising a bug if necessary? Or maybe Amir, you should raise a bug and we could get someone from legals' opinion/
[Was not previously a list subscriber; have done that now. Thanks to James Alexander for bringing this to my attention.]
Kenan and I (along with other members of product and design) have been looking at this language for a while to try to improve it. #1 on my list is definitely to say "agree to irrevocably release" instead of "irrevocably agree to release". :) The legal meaning is essentially the same but the new wording would be clearer.
That said, we're thinking about rewriting a lot of the copyright language stuff to make it more clear (and hopefully shorter to boot!) so it don't think it is a high priority to rewrite/revise this - it may be completely revised/reorganized in the next few months anyway.
Hope that helps- Luis
-- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810
NOTICE: *This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.*
On Sat, Feb 1, 2014 at 4:03 AM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
Thanks a lot for this answer, Luis.
I'm glad that you plan to make a through rewording of the legal strings.
To be clear, just of the ToU/CC-related stuff (at least for now) - i.e., the stuff you see when you edit.
When you get around to it, please ask Language Engineering - we'd love to help making not only readable, but easier to translate as well.
I'm curious - what's the normal process for that in Foundation software? i.e., whose responsibility is it, when is the best time to start thinking about that, etc.? It is not something Legal has been involved in much in the past, so I don't know much about the process (though I've been involved with it for other open source projects for many years, so I am familiar with many of the concepts).
Luis
בתאריך 30 בינו 2014 21:51, מאת "Luis Villa" lvilla@wikimedia.org:
On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 11:38 AM, James Alexander < jalexander@wikimedia.org> wrote:
I'm not sure what to suggest.. IANAL either and no one else seems to be engaging in this conversation :-S Kenan / Juliusz (I think you follow this list) - might be worth you following up with legal and raising a bug if necessary? Or maybe Amir, you should raise a bug and we could get someone from legals' opinion/
[Was not previously a list subscriber; have done that now. Thanks to James Alexander for bringing this to my attention.]
Kenan and I (along with other members of product and design) have been looking at this language for a while to try to improve it. #1 on my list is definitely to say "agree to irrevocably release" instead of "irrevocably agree to release". :) The legal meaning is essentially the same but the new wording would be clearer.
That said, we're thinking about rewriting a lot of the copyright language stuff to make it more clear (and hopefully shorter to boot!) so it don't think it is a high priority to rewrite/revise this - it may be completely revised/reorganized in the next few months anyway.
Hope that helps- Luis
-- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810
NOTICE: *This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.*
On Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 9:41 AM, Luis Villa lvilla@wikimedia.org wrote:
When you get around to it, please ask Language Engineering - we'd love to
help making not only readable, but easier to translate as well.
I'm curious - what's the normal process for that in Foundation software? i.e., whose responsibility is it, when is the best time to start thinking about that, etc.? It is not something Legal has been involved in much in the past, so I don't know much about the process (though I've been involved with it for other open source projects for many years, so I am familiar with many of the concepts).
The related guide at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Localisation is extremely comprehensive. The TL;DR: answer is it's ultimately the responsibility of the developers and product managers on a team to make sure localization is possible/easy. The Language Engineering team largely assists directly through advice and code review, not to mention maintaining/supporting translatewiki.net.
Steven, thanks for this reply. It is correct.
I'll just add this: 1. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Localisation is quite developer-oriented, but should be useful to everyone. 2. Don't be afraid of committing translations early. Some software projects wait until a late stage with publishing translatable strings, but we believe that getting early feedback from translators is very useful.
If you have any more questions, we should probably do it off-list :)
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2014-02-03 Steven Walling swalling@wikimedia.org:
On Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 9:41 AM, Luis Villa lvilla@wikimedia.org wrote:
When you get around to it, please ask Language Engineering - we'd love to
help making not only readable, but easier to translate as well.
I'm curious - what's the normal process for that in Foundation software? i.e., whose responsibility is it, when is the best time to start thinking about that, etc.? It is not something Legal has been involved in much in the past, so I don't know much about the process (though I've been involved with it for other open source projects for many years, so I am familiar with many of the concepts).
The related guide at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Localisation is extremely comprehensive. The TL;DR: answer is it's ultimately the responsibility of the developers and product managers on a team to make sure localization is possible/easy. The Language Engineering team largely assists directly through advice and code review, not to mention maintaining/supporting translatewiki.net.
-- Steven Walling, Product Manager https://wikimediafoundation.org/