Comment by simiones | Hacker News Reader

Comment by simiones | Hacker News Reader

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The page is very clear that it only considers the English document to constitute the real contract, and all translations as helpers, not as legal documents:

> The FSF does not approve license translations as officially valid. The reason is that checking them would be difficult and expensive (needing the help of bilingual lawyers in other countries). Even worse, if an error did slip through, the results could be disastrous for the whole free software community. As long as the translations are unofficial, they can't do any legal harm.

> ...

> We give permission to publish translations of GNU licenses into other languages, provided that:

> You label your translation as unofficial to inform people that they do not count legally as substitutes for the authentic version (see below for how to do this).

Yes, that is what it says. Not "cannot be used in court". Just that they consider the English version authoritative.

Are you trying to tell me you can't tell the difference between these statements?

do not count legally as substitutes for the authentic version isn't the exact same wording, but I don't think it's a leap to go from "this is not a legal document" to "this is not to be used in court" when referring specifically to contracts and licenses.

It's at least no more of a leap than telling someone they're lying when they're paraphrasing, and in a way many people think is fairly accurate.

Ok, I didn't realize anyone would really think that only legal documents could be used in court. It seems an utterly bizarre idea to me.

Did you think that an eyewitness account of a murder would be inadmissible because it's not a legal document?

You're being oddly pedantic. The translations aren't authorized by the FSF to be used as the translation of their licenses i.e. they entirely reserve the right to dispute the text of any of them.

You can use an empty soda can in court. The FSF probably hopes that they are used in court as a starting point.

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