Re: COPYLEFT SIGN

From: Bernd Warken (bwarken@mayn.de)
Date: Sun May 14 2000 - 17:05:13 EDT


On Sun, May 14, 2000 at 12:14:45PM +0100, Michael Everson wrote:
> Well as someone interested in character names, I object to the name
> proposed. The "right" in "copyright" refers to privilege and permission,
> not to directionality. Consequently its reversal in the term "copyleft" is
> inappropriate. I suppose its devisers thought it "cute" in English, though
> it is not; COPYWRONG SIGN would be . Further, it causes translation
> problems: "copyleft" cannot be translated correctly without knowledge of
> this. In Irish, we say "cóipcheart" where "ceart" means privilege and
> permission. We do not have a directional "*cóipdheas" and therefore a term
> like "*cóipchlé" would certainly not occur to a translator.
>
This argumentation does not hit the point. "Copyleft" is an accepted
name describing free software and documentation licenses. It was being
used in this sense for years. It is a common name that is not meant to be
translated, e.g. I would always call you "Everson" even if the parts of
your name might be translated into the new German word combination
"Jemalssohn".

> REVERSED COPYRIGHT SIGN would be an acceptable name.

This is the description on how the glyph is constructed from an existing
Unicode character, not the character name.

Bernd Warken <bwarken@mayn.de>



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