Re: COPYLEFT SIGN

From: Michael Everson (everson@egt.ie)
Date: Mon May 15 2000 - 05:50:25 EDT


Ar 23:05 +0200 2000-05-14, scríobh Bernd Warken:

>"Copyleft" is an accepted name describing free software and documentation
>licenses. It was being used in this sense for years.

As I said to your colleague, I haven't heard it before nor seen it in GNU
licences before. And my company even translated some GNU software into
Irish.

>It is a common name that is not meant to be
>translated

You cannot stipulate this. "Copyright" is commonly 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".

I would translate my name as Immersohn. Which exactly proves my point.
Whoever made up the word "copyleft" was playing with the word "right". It
is cute, but it is not conceptually parseable (as "copyright" is).

>> 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.

There are plenty of similar characters in the standard.

Michael Everson ** Everson Gunn Teoranta ** http://www.egt.ie
15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire/Ireland
Vox +353 1 478 2597 ** Fax +353 1 478 2597 ** Mob +353 86 807 9169
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