Harry Potter in German, not Czech

The official translation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix into German is scheduled to hit shelves on November 8. But at the Harry auf deutsch site (here's Google's English), a community has sprung up to perform a distributed translation. Every volunteer works on five pages, with the aid of a Potter-specific dictionary, and after turning in a German version, works on the prose to ensure it reads smoothly. In an unrelated effort, some schoolboys who did a Czech translation and posted it to a private website have been sued by Albatros, the Czech publishing house who will have the official translation out in February. Looks like Harry is crushing more than the Hulk.

Oh, and please don't post spoilers, it's still too early :)

Comments

Eine Gespoiler fur die Deutche

[stud9920]

Hermione gedeies. Harry gefingert Ginny. Die Schlanghause gewins die Hauskupf aber die Goldfogelhause gewins die Kwidietschkupfe. Herr Schnaps und Harry gebekommen gute Freunde. Siegfried Schwartz gebekommt Hauptmeister.

Re:Respect for Laws

[evilviper]

The very foundation of much of the opensource movement, the GPL license is about respect for law.

Actually, I'd dare say that the foundation of the GPL is that corporations are held to higher standards of law, because there it is much easier, and more profitable to enforce.

For instance, nobody cares too much if an individual distributes GPL'd software binaries without source, but if a company does it, they are in for it!

Perhaps the best example of GPL fanboys looking the other way when it suits them, is MPlayer. Certainly it is good software, and it gets praised as such. Unfortunately, according to the GPL, it can NOT be distributed, because of the patented technology it uses (MPEG2/MPEG4/WMV/et al.). Nobody seems to mind that the authors themselves are violating the license they themselves have chosen, and people don't pay any attention to this clear-cut case of the GPL's limitations/problems. Hey, they don't run a company, so they don't care that their software is illegial.

We can't have opensource without these very same laws.

Which is always an interesting point when there is a discussion here on slashdot about P2P.

In a GPL discussion, they will defend the license by saying that you aren't required to use GPL'd software, and so aren't required to GPL your code.

In a discussion about the RIAA/MPAA, they say that the RIAA/MPAA charges too much, makes crap, etc., and that justifies their copying. Never does anyone bring up the fact that they can choose to simply not watch that movie or listen to that song at all. For some reason, it reminds me a lot of the DVD boycott... /.ers scream about how terrible it is that DVDs are encrypted, and go out and buy more of them anyhow.

"Sure, I'll fight for what I believe, as long as it doesn't inconvience me in any way."