translation

Hello,
A few months ago I translated two legal documents, one "W3C document licence" (http://www.tlumaczenia-angielski.info/w3c/copyright-documents-20021231.html) and "Intellectual rights FAQ" (http://www.tlumaczenia-angielski.info/w3c/IPR-FAQ-20000620.html) . I figured that these two documents may come very handy, especially for those who don't have a good command of English and come to the W3C site for a number of reasons, e.g. to download a translation of an original document to name one. Such individuals don't necessarily know English but they know how to navigate, which is what I sometimes do, exploring foreign sites. In the translation proccess  I contacted a number of translators, some of which were lawyers, just to make sure that I produced a piece that is legally acceptable and as close to the original as possible. Unfortunately, the translated documents  have gone unnoticed. I was told that this issue would be discussed by the W3C legal department at some point in the
 future. I don't know whether it has been or not because I haven't received any feedback on it as of yet. 
I understand that W3C may have some reservations as to having legal documents translated by volunteer translators since there might be some legal cases as well as  some danger that such  documents have not been translated properly.  The same can be said about any translation of technical documents, although from the guidelines we know that only English version is normative. W3C is a community of people doing various things. Translators are a small part of this community but thanks to them the W3C work is known around the world. Afterall, the inclusion of translated documents into the W3C database is always based on trust and good faith. I personally can't fothom the fact that people can read translated versions of guidelines and other technical documents with legal disclaimers, licences, etc in English ( the language that they may not happen to understand).
 Wouldn't it make some sense to have these available to non-English speakers, so they know what they can or cannot do with the documents or  document excerpts, logos, pictures, on so on?
Cheers,
Natalia
 


 
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