Bug#692728: Possible GPL violation: Geogebra

[Hendrik Weimer]

Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com> writes:

> Internationalization files are derivative works if they
> internationalize strings that were created by someone else. And if
> those strings were part of an original GPL work there is potentially a
> license violation. But if they were created by the same author as the
> GPL program they are not derivative of anything. It's also going to be
> difficult to argue convincingly to a court that they must be under a
> license that is compatible with the rest of the program, they are
> arguably input to the program.

I'm not so sure about the last part as it heavily depends on the
particular implementation. For gettext-style translations you are
probably right, as you can remove the translation files and still have a
working program. If *all* languages are equally stored in a separate
file, then removing this file will stop the program from working. So the
question is: How is this one in Geogebra?

Anyway, the potentially infringing copy has been created by an Austrian
organization and is hosted in Germany; U.S. case law is probably not
too relevant here.

Hendrik