On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Louis Suárez-Potts <lo...@apache.org> wrote: > André, > Do we have an account of the difficulties encountered by the > localizers of OOo language packs and related data? As to Rob's point, > I think a relevant issue is that in translations such as those > required by localizations, the word chosen to translate the original > is an interpretation, and its quality (value) depends on the skill of > the localizer. >
And creating a catalog of birds observed in a park also requires skill. But that does not make it a creative work. Compare the following catalogs: A phone book: Abel, George W, 212-332-3294 Abel, Thomas S. 212-433-2322 etc. A catalog of weather observations: 1970-12-01, Boston, 42.3, 18.2, 5, NE 1970-12-02, Miami, 74.2, 52.6, 10, SW A list of biographical information: Napoleon Bonaparte, French, 1769-1821 Frederick the Great, German, 1712-1786 A tagged list of words in a language: agricola, agricolae (m) (noun) amo, amare, amavi, amatus sum (verb) These are all just lists of facts. You might try to claim a copyright on the particular selection and arrangement of these facts, but the underlying facts cannot be protected. So, for example, some could extract (reverse engineer) the underlying facts from the work, and arrange them differently or with a different selection, and it would be perfectly fine. Copyright does not protect the underlying facts, no matter how hard it was for someone to collect the facts to to type them in. -Rob > Or so I understand. > > Louis > > On 7 November 2011 11:20, Rob Weir <robw...@apache.org> wrote: >> On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 11:14 AM, Olivier R. <olivier.nore...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >>> Le 07/11/2011 16:53, Rob Weir a écrit : >>> >>>> Why would Apache care about that? >>> >>> Maybe just because you are an Apache member and you make a strong statement >>> on an Apache list about FLOSS you are willing to bundle in your software. >>> I’d prefer an official statement about this point, if you don’t mind. >>> >> >> I think it would be obvious to a cabbage that no one is going to >> recognize copyright claims on things that cannot be validly claimed >> under copyright law. It is also clear that the determination of this >> for any specific artifact, like a specific spell checking dictionary >> would require detailed analysis. Since Apache does not hand out free >> legal advice, I don't think you will get an official response to your >> hypothetical question. >> >> -Rob >> >> >>> Regards, >>> Olivier >>> >> >
