Unofficial GNU GPL v2.0 Translations

Information about unofficialtranslations

The reason the FSF does not approve these translations as officiallyvalid is that checking them would be difficult and expensive (needingthe help of bilingual lawyers in other countries). Even worse, if anerror did slip through, the results could be disastrous for the wholefree software community. As long as the translations are unofficial,they can't do any harm.

The purpose of linking to translations is to help more peopleunderstand the GPL. In order for them to do that, translationsneed to be basically accurate even if not perfect. To produce a goodtranslation, it is essential to have fully understood fundamentalconcepts such ascopyleftandthefree software definition.For this reason, those who wish to contribute translations should makesure they are well acquainted with these concepts as well as otherphilosophical principles that may appear in the document.

We give permission to publish translations of the GNU GPLinto other languages, provided that:

  1. You label your translation as unofficial to inform people thatthey do not count legally as substitutes for the authentic version(see below for how to do this).
  2. You agree to install changes at our request, if we learn from otherfriends of GNU that changes are necessary to make the translationclearer.
  3. The translation is not hosted on a commercial site and does notrefer to any company.
  4. The page containing the translation should have no linksexcept to fsf.org and gnu.org. We might accept links aboutother free software packages, but we prefer to avoid them.
  5. You permit others to copy, modify, and republish your translation (andmodified versions of your translation) subject to these terms by placingthe following notice: “You may publish this translation, modified orunmodified, only under the terms athttp://www.gnu.org/licenses/translations.html.”

We may accept small exceptions to these rules inlegacy cases that are hard to fix.

We do not necessarily link to all the unofficial translations thatwe know of in any given language. For instance, if one unofficialtranslation was made by a free software organization that we know andhave confidence in, we will link to that translation rather than others.We still can't make it official, but we expect it is probably mostlycorrect.

To label your translations as unofficial we want you to add thefollowing text at the beginning,both in English and in the language of the translation—replacing“language” with the name of that language:

This is an unofficial translation of the GNU General Public Licenseintolanguage. It was not published by the Free SoftwareFoundation, and does not legally state the distribution terms forsoftware that uses the GNU GPL—only the original English text of theGNU GPL does that. However, we hope that this translation will helplanguagespeakers understand the GNU GPL better.

If you make a translation, please inform the GNU Translation Managers<web-translators@gnu.org>.They will check to make sure that your translation follows the aboveguidelines and make a link to it from this page.

These are translations of an older version of the GNU GPL. Translations ofcurrent licenses can be foundhere.