Re: [bug-gnulib] copyright message with(out) directives

[Bruno Haible]

Karl Berry wrote:
> Is it better for translators to use placeholder directives in the
> standard copyright message, like this (inherited in GNU Hello):
>
>       printf (_("\
> Copyright (C) %s Free Software Foundation, Inc.\n\
> There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A\n\
> PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  You may redistribute copies of GNU %s under the
> terms\n\ of the GNU General Public License.\n\
> For more information about these matters, see the file named COPYING.\n"),
>               "2005", PACKAGE);
>
> Or just hardwire the text like this (what I've been doing in Texinfo):
>
>           puts ("Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.");
>           printf (_("There is NO warranty.  You may redistribute this
> software\n\ under the terms of the GNU General Public License.\n\
> For more information about these matters, see the files named
> COPYING.\n"));
>
> I recall past discussions about this, but don't know what the current
> preference is.

For the translators, it's definitely better _with_ the %s placeholders.
The first one avoids the need for the translator to re-check the message
once a year. The second one allows the translation teams to come up with
a common translation, across all packages - they store the translation in
a so-called "translation memory" - while being precise about the amount of
software which is covered by the GPL.

Bruno