Proposed License for Blender's PO UI Translation Files

Contributing to Blender
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Last week we realized that our translation PO files for Blender (currently in this SVN repository) have no license at all.

After discussing it further with Ton and the Blender admins team, the proposal is to use the Blender license (i.e. GPL v3), following the suggestion from the gettext project itself to (This file is distributed under the same license as the PACKAGE package.).

Note that the initial proposal was to license the whole repository as CC0 1.0, essentially because these are purely data files, and it does not seem to be good reasons to restrict freedom on this work. However, there are a few potential issue with this approach:

  • The source strings are extracted from GPL source code.
  • One may consider that the ‘implicit’ license so far was the same as the Blender project itself (GPL v3), so it would be simpler and safer to explicitly switch to that license.

Other considered options were:

Any feedback on this proposal is much welcome.

Some notes:

  • We will soon move UI translation from SVN to a git repository (including online editing with weblate).
    • As part of this transition, all binary files (MO’s) will be removed form our repositories (they have already been dynamically generated as part of Blender build process for years, so the ones on SVN are not used anymore).
    • Only full versions of the PO files (the one translators actually work on) will remain in the new dedicated git repository.
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Hi, I’m in favor of CC0 1.0 ; I don’t think this needs extra restrictions - could be easier for somebody trying to ‘quote’ a feature in a post or document.
The other suggestions listed are OK too -I guess the ‘aggregate’ blender license will prevail so blender users are guaranteed access to the PO files due to GPL (not that anyone is trying to hide them)
This is said by someone who hasn’t translated anything and also uses the default language, so maybe take it with a grain of salt :wink:

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I already expressed my thoughts in the issue, but I also find CC0 a good choice. I do believe that a copyleft license such as the GPL would have had a stronger weight to ensure the work is only used in other FOSS projects, even if it’s only data, but I’m fine with CC0 too.

And by the way, I’m really happy for this change to Weblate, I hope it brings on many more dedicated or casual translators!

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proposal is now to rather use the Blender license itself (GPL v3), initial post has been updated.

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