[Bug localedata/11213] localedata licencing issues

["keld at keldix dot com" <sourceware-bugzilla at sourceware dot org>]

http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11213

--- Comment #16 from keld at keldix dot com <keld at keldix dot com> 2012-07-16 08:56:10 UTC ---
On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 08:13:31PM -0500, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
> Hi Keld,
> 
> Keld Simonsen wrote[1]:
> 
> > Hmm, I contributed a number of locales. I always assumed that there was a
> > copyright to each of them.
> > I do hold a masters in legislate law.
> [lots of helpful background snipped, including the intent of the
> original notice]
> 
> Thanks much for this.  I'm cc-ing the SFLC since I'm not sure they
> automatically receive mails to that bug tracker.
> 
> My guess is that the FSF's concerns that prompted the "this type of
> thing isn't copyrightable" answer were USA-centric.  If I remember
> correctly, in some jurisdictions outside the United States, the
> eligibility of a work for copyright is based on the amount of work put
> into it (as you remind me), while in the United States it's based on a
> concept of creativity.

I claim that there is a lot of creativity in how the locales are written, at
least
the big ones.  As said one of my intial works were 100 pages of the POSIX.2
standard.
And then the locales grew even further, with the advent of full ISO 10646
(Unicode)
coverage and ISO TR 14652 extra categories.  There is a lot of design and
ideas, 
and a lot of design criteria in the locales. Including a number of theoretical
landmarks,
and something that could have been patentetd, if somebody were inclined to do
such nasty things:-)
And IMHO that has resulted in a system that still has a number of advantages
over
what big players in the market have done for i18n. 

And then there is compilation copyright according to the Berne convention -
maybe you
don't hold copyright on the data, but you hold copyright on the presentation on
it and the
collection of the combination of the data.

I would say in juridical terms it would not be safe to assume that there is no
copyright on
the locales (and charmaps and repertoiremaps).

Best regards
keld

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