Tue 11 Mar 2008 09:56:49 AM UTC, comment #3:
A long debate on the Italian mailing list showed that most translators
believe "permesso d'autore" is indeed a good translation.
RMS expressed the same concerns back in 2004; we still agree on the
answer we gave at the time, after which RMS accepted our translation.
Please find the answer and a comment by RMS below.
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(Francesco Potorti', 2004)
The translation "permesso d'autore" for "copyleft" has been chosen
[years] ago after a long debate between the Italian translators.
Some years after, we think that the choice was a good one.
In Italy, the legal expression that references most of the English
"copyright" legal concepts is "diritto d'autore". It is not exactly the
same thing, because they make reference to different legal systems, but
it is very similar, and it is what is commonly used when speaking of
such matters. From a linguistic point of view, just as "copyright" does
not simply mean "right to copy", "diritto d'autore" does not just mean
author's rights (that would be "diritti dell'autore"). Both "copyright"
and "diritto d'autore" are specific legal terms: this is true both in
Italian and in English.
The term copyleft has some interesting properties, which we wanted to
translate into Italian. As it commonly happens with translations of
plays on words, it was not obvious how to obtain this effect. The
properties we wanted to maintain are:
- copyleft is a simple word
- it has no obvious meaning attached
- it does not sound bad
- it quickly recalls "copyright", suggesting that it is a similar
concept, but in some way opposite to it
We found that "permesso d'autore" has the same properties in Italian,
with reference to "diritto d'autore".
So, to answer your questions more precisely, yes, permesso means
permission, but "permesso d'autore" does not mean "author's permission"
(that would be "permesso dell'autore"), rather it is an invented
expression with no specific meaning until properly explained.
---
(RMS 2004)
I see you've thought about the issue that was my concern,
so I won't continue to disagree.
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