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SuSE, Czech Localization, And An Odd Licensing Twist
"According to their FAQ and their official statement in the Czech Linux mailing list (both links are in Czech, sorry), they plan to GPL the StarOffice localization files after May 31, 2001. To make things even more interesting, they additionaly permit to use the StarOffice localization under Debian and Slackware after February 28, 2001. But when you use Red Hat, Mandrake, TurboLinux or anything else, you either have to switch your distribution, or wait until June.
Do not get me wrong, they can put any license they want on the software they developed. But I definitely do not think this is the right thing to do for an Open source(tm) company.
I should probably add a background info about Linux in the Czech republic: The most difficult part about Czech localization is, that we do not use ISO 8859-1, but ISO 8859-2. So we cannot use the standard PostScript fonts directly, we have problems with software, authors of which think everyone uses ISO 8859-1, etc. The most popular distribution here is definitely Red Hat Linux, but others (such as Debian, Slackware, Mandrake or SuSE are widely used, too). Only SuSE has the development team here, though. In the SuSE Czech (or with its funding) are developed for example the ALSA project, Linux Input drivers, etc. A majority of the Czech kernel developers work at least partly for SuSE (Martin Mares, the kernel PCI guru, Vojtech Pavlik, to name at least few).
So SuSE Czech definitely does some good things, but their StarOffice localization licensing is, to be honest, unfortunate. What do you think about this?
-Yenya (the head of the Czech Linux Users' group)"
Sounds to me like this is why the GPL is so important. I'm assuming (1) that this about OpenOffice, not just StarOffice, and (2) that the reason they can do this is because they are using the Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL) instead of the GPL. (OpenOffice is licensed under both GPL and SISSL, take your pick.)
If SISSL allows you to release such proprietary extensions, then it's a poor choice to allow OpenOffice to be licensed under it. While SuSE sounds like they will do The Right Thing and GPL their mods, what's to prevent someone else from not doing that in an attempt to privatize the whole thing? If OpenOffice is to become such a major project, it is very important for it to remain GPL.
This is similar to the old, ThankGodNoLongerRelevant GNOME/KDE license wars. The license under which core components for Linux are shipped is extremely important; it must be GPL, or else the whole system can breakdown if later on someone sneaks a major subsystem into proprietary land. While OpenOffice isn't as critical (license-wise) as the kernel, X, or GNOME/KDE, it has a shot at being the most popular office suite under Linux, and if the goal is try to keep it open source, it should have a truly open source license.
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In a real emergency, we would have all fled in terror, and you would not have been notified.
Pay attention to Q12 specifically...
Q1: What was involved in the localization?
The majority of strings which StarOffice (SO from here on) uses at runtime are stored in resource files. It is a common technique which allows programmers to separate the program from the data which it uses.
The resource files do not contain only the strings. They also contain dialog window definitions and display elements, menus, mouse pointers, bitmaps, and other important components.
Where are the resources for SO stored? If you install SO to opt/office52, as it is in SuSE Linux, you'll find them in
He who would want to translate SO to another language, e.g. Czech, would have to open the resource files and translate all the strings. He would further have to modify the code to work with all the symbols which the new language may contain.
If you look into any of the aforementioned sources, you'll find that they're not text-editable. There exist specialized resource editors, but SO works with a proprietary resource format, and is therefore not modifiable in this way.
The only person able to modify the resources is the software's author, in this case Sun Microsystems. If it is not interested in localizing for a specific language, there doesn't exist any other way of translating the software.
Incidentally, around the end of 2000, Sun decided to open the source code of SO 5.2 under the title OpenOffice (OO). Thanks to the fact that the source code is key to localization, the opening was met with great anticipation.
When the source code was opened, it was found that several key components which were a part of SO are absent in OO. Perhaps not because Sun wanted to keep them away from prying eyes, but because Sun did not develop themselves, but bought them from third parties. The license under which Sun did so did not allow it to open the code for these components.
Because of this, OO lacked a complete printing system and organizer. In addition, as a work in progress in comparison to SO, OO seemed rather disjointed.
Thus, it was not possible to localize SO because of a proprietary resource format, and it was not worthwhile to localize OO because of its incompleteness.
Q2. StarOffice, OpenOffice, I'm all confused. What did you actually translate?
It was impossible to localize SO thanks to unknown binary resource formats and it was not worthwhile to localize OO because of its incompleteness.
After further examination of both applications, we came to the conclusion that there exists a significant probability that OO uses the same, or similar, resource formats as SO.
SuSE programmers, based on the OO source code, attempted to create a tool which would allow access to strings stored in the binary resource files of SO. Their work was successful and it became possible to consider possibly localizing SO 5.2.
After considering the circumstances, SuSE decided to go ahead with the translation, expecting to finish around the end of 2000.
Q3. Why is the translation over 100MB? It looks like the entire SO and not just the translated strings.
Not really relevant...
Q4-Q7... ditto
Q8. Localization is silly, you should've rather translated OO. You'd have been helping Open Source Software!
We considered localization of OO (viz. Q1), but in the end, because of many reasons, decided to do SO. Consider that our work might have a benefit even for the OO project, and we plan to open the sources of the translation in 2001.
Q9. What'll I find in the so_czech package?
Programs from the polish version of SO, help from the english version, and new czech resource files, a czech dictionary and czech grammar rules.
Q12. Are the translated resource files under the GPL? Can I distribute the Czech SO? Can I use it in a different distribution?
Czech-ified SO 5.2 is freely useable in the SuSE Linux distribution. The Company SuSE CR, s.r.o. will not contest personal use on other distributions. It will , however, legally challenge commercial subjects, if they use the Czech translation of SO without written consent of SuSE CR, s.r.o.
All rights to the translation belong to SuSE CR, s.r.o. Resources are NOT available under GNU GPL.
The translations will be GPL'd 31/5/2001.
Q15. Did SuSE work with Sun on the translation?
Neither the Czech or German divisions of Sun showed, at any time, interest in participating in the effort of translating SO 5.2 to Czech.
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