Reusing translations from different projects might lead to licensing
issues. Since it's hard to determine compatibility between different
projects, Launchpad leaves the responsibility with the translator to
make sure they are not infringing on copyright terms.

The guide here should help you decide if you can legally reuse a
suggestion you are seeing marked with a legal warning icon
({{https://launchpad.net/@@/warning}}).

== When can you simply reuse a translation? ==

In cases where a translation is consisted of only a few words, you can
feel free to reuse a translation.  A few words are very likely the
same words you would come by yourself, and as a special case, single
word translations are the ones you can certainly reuse.

However, if you use a lot suggestions from one particular project, you
should still check for license compatibility (see below).


Another common case is if the two projects are using exactly the same
free software license, when you are free to make use of the
translation under those same terms.

In case a project you are sourcing your translation from is also
translated as part of [[http://translationproject.org|Translation Project]], 
and that specific translation is in public domain (check if
the translator is listed as having disclaimed his translations on the
[[http://translationproject.org/team/index.html|teams]] page), you are
free to reuse translations as well.

Also, you can sometimes get an approval from a translator directly,
when you can reuse all translations from that person.

== Checking for license compatibility ==

Sometimes, you have to check if the licenses for the two projects (one
you are sourcing translations from, other is the one you are
translating) are compatible.  You need to make sure if the licenses
for the "source" project allows reuse in "target" project licensed
works.

To check this may sometimes be relatively easy: if a "source" license
is a lax license, like revised BSD or X license (when you can freely
reuse all translations).  In other cases, you have to check for the
compatibility between licenses.

For the most common case of reusing in a GPL licensed project, you
have to check the
[[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses|GPL license compatibility list]].  
In general, you can reuse both LGPL
and GPL licensed translations in another GPL licensed project.