I see, then how about the short version:

Copyright (C) YEAR the authors of Guix (msgids) and the following authors (msgstr)

does that work for you?

I'm not a native speaker, so I might not have conveyed the right meaning. My intention was that exceptions would be directly below the copyright line, in the comments before the po header. If I could convey that meaning, would that be acceptable, as readers wouldn't have to scan the whole document? I'll need some help for the perfect wording though. Maybe

Copyright (C) YEAR the authors of Guix (msgids) and the following authors (msgstr) unless explicitly stated in the rest of this comment

Copyright (C) YEAR the authors of Guix (msgids) and the following authors (msgstr) unless explicitly stated in the following lines

wdyt?

Hi, thanks for reminding me of this. I had missed the previous reply. So, it seems that saying the authors are also copyright holders is OK, and I think this is the most future-proof way to ensure authors are given copyright.

I pushed the changes to make sure new po files (and fixed existing ones) say something like:

Copyright (C) YEAR the authors of Guix (msgids) and the following authors (msgstr) unless explicitely stated below

Note that weblate (and most po edition tools) will simply list authors at the end of the initial comment, without the word "COPYRIGHT", something like:

# YEAR NAME

The intended meaning is that the lines like these now magically say who holds copyright. Then, only if an author actually assigned their copyright to someone else, do they need to open the file (which is unintuitive with weblate, so reserved for special cases rather than common case) and explicitly state it.

Hope this is alright! With this, I think I managed to do all the fixes you asked for.

> Since we never required copyright to be assigned to the FSF, I think it stays with the individual authors. Is that correct?

Yes, unless they did that work for hire or assigned their copyright to someone else.

comment #15:

>
> Again, this is a constant in GNU projects that use the Translation Project.

I don't think this is correct.

> Msgids (untranslated strings) are copyright the authors of Guix, but the
> translated strings are attributed to individual translators, listed below.
> I can add the word "Copyright", but I'm not sure it changes anything, does
> it?

The authors and the copyright holders are different concepts.  The author is the person who does the work, the copyright holder is the person who may legally license the work.  In particular, if the authors assign copyright to the FSF, they are not copyright holders any more.

In PO files, the authors should be listed separately from the copyright notices.  GNU documentation explains that records of authors should be kept in a dedicated file, AUTHORS,
https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Recording-Contributors.html

> Alright, I fixed .gitignore and manifest.scm, but I copied CODE-OF-CONDUCT
> from the main Guix repo, where it does not have any license header either.

If a file has no copyright and license notices, it's technically not just proprietary, it's unredistributable, making any copying a copyright violation.

comment #14:

>
> - For the po and pot files, would it not be more helpful and clearer
>   to mention the license which "the guix manual package", "the guix
>   package", or "GNU guix package" is distributed under?
>
>   Also, for the pot files, I think it would make sense to mention,
>   perhaps on a separate line, the copyright year(s) at the top of each
>   file.

These pot files are generated using gettext, so that's difficult to do.
If you look at other GNU projects, all the pot files are similar.

> - Is it accurate that the copyright holders even for the translated
>   strings in the po files are "the authors of Guix" or "the authors of
>   the Guix Website"?  I think the translators would be the copyright
>   holders for the translations, no?  If so, would you please make that
>   change across those files?  I think it would also be useful for each
>   file to list the name of all translators/copyright holders for
>   clarity.

Again, this is a constant in GNU projects that use the Translation Project.
Msgids (untranslated strings) are copyright the authors of Guix, but the
translated strings are attributed to individual translators, listed below.
I can add the word "Copyright", but I'm not sure it changes anything, does
it?
 

> - The following files are missing a license header/notice in them:
>
>   - .gitignore
>   - CODE-OF-CONDUCT
>   - manifest.scm

Alright, I fixed .gitignore and manifest.scm, but I copied CODE-OF-CONDUCT
from the main Guix repo, where it does not have any license header either.

I am currently hosting the files at https://framagit.org/tyreunom/guix-translations

Yes, we'll need a new tarball to evaluate.

Hi, sorry again for the delay! I thought I had commented about it previously, but I must have done something wrong, because my comment doesn't appear after all.

We have contacted all our contributors and managed to fix the copyright issues.

comment #6:

> comment #5:
> >
> > I'm inclined to think that as of now, "Official GNU software" is the
> > best choice for guix-i18n, given that Guix itself is "Official GNU
> > software" and translations are most often considered part of the same
> > project.
>
> Well, a part of an official GNU package isn't necessarily also a GNU
> package (in most cases it isn't). for example, we don't want all
> possible parts of GNU packages to be listed on https://www.gnu.org/s
> as GNU packages (that would be neither feasible nor useful).
>

Okay I think I see your point.

>
> > However, if we'd like to add new group types for translations, the
> > possible candidates could be "Translations of official GNU software"
> > and "Translations of non-GNU software and documentation".
> >
> > If we are aiming to be more general than just translations, we could
> > perhaps do "Extras for official GNU software" and "Extras for non-GNU
> > software and documentation"?
>
> "Extras" or "portions" look good to me; I'm not sure we'll need the
> "non-GNU" counterpart: likewise, we have no "nongnu translation teams"
> or "non-GNU user groups".

Either of those would work for me as well.  And sure, we can only add
what we need right now, and only add the others at some point in the
future if there is an actual need for them.

comment #3:

> Another thought: this type of group, "Official GNU Software", is reserved for GNU packages; probably we'll want to use something different, like "www.gnu.org translation teams", or create a new group type.

I'm inclined to think that as of now, "Official GNU software" is the
best choice for guix-i18n, given that Guix itself is "Official GNU
software" and translations are most often considered part of the same
project.

However, if we'd like to add new group types for translations, the
possible candidates could be "Translations of official GNU software"
and "Translations of non-GNU software and documentation".

If we are aiming to be more general than just translations, we could
perhaps do "Extras for official GNU software" and "Extras for non-GNU
software and documentation"?

Another thought: this type of group, "Official GNU Software", is reserved for GNU packages; probably we'll want to use something different, like "www.gnu.org translation teams", or create a new group type.

Hi Julien,

Thanks for the submission.

I had a quick look through the attached tarball.  I have a couple of
questions regarding the copyright headers, in both pot files and po
files.

I see that all of the pot files have the following copyright notice,
with Ludo’ listed as the only copyright holder:

    Copyright (C) YEAR Ludovic Courtès

Since Ludo’ isn't the only copyright holder and contributor to Guix
(anymore :-)), wouldn't it be more appropriate to have something like
the following?

    Copyright (C) YEAR the authors of Guix (msgids)

Which is what I see is used in some of the po files.  Would that be more
in line with <https://translationproject.org/html/whydisclaim.html>?

Also, I see some of the po files mention the Free Software Foundation as
the copyright holder.  Is that indeed the case?  I'm curious since Guix
itself is not copyright FSF and does not requirement assignment from
contributors.

For what it's worth, I ask these questions both as a reviewer and on a
personal level (I have been looking into translating Guix recently).

Thanks,
amin