I can’t translate Risus contents! T_T

[Kaworu]

Hi.

Okay, so recently I re-discovered Risus, the Anything RPG. Predominantly, I also learned of a fan website with a lot of mechanics and other goodies for the system. And Risus – maybe with the exclusion of the literally 1 payable stuff – was always meant to be free & open culture (at least this is my interpretation of the context of the license).

Where is my problem? Well… the Risus license gives you free access to the system and allows you to publish anything you wanna. But… literally, it does not convey anything about translations x_x And according to my understanding of the license and the copyrights, “just” translating all the goodies cause I wanna would violate the law.

Mind me, this is not a topic about legal stuff. Instead, it is about, hm… well, from this perspective – that I cannot translate “free” Risus – the decision to write a special, one-of-a-kind license seems wrong. Wouldn’t Creative Commons be much better? And also, not writing a single word about translation – both of the original system and “add-ons” others have written – kinda shows the mindset of a typical Anglo-saxon. That there is just English and why should we bother about other languages, huh?

(I mean, Risus is a work of art made using written language. The question of translation is kinda obvious? At least to me, but of course, I ama bilingual Eastern European…?)

What’s worse, the author is unavailable both on Twitter and Mastodon, so I cannot ask him directly about how stuff works and what I can and what I cannot do with the game. That sucks, actually? x_x

I mean! *waves hands desperately in the air* There are so many, many goodies! All for free! Online! Just beyond the reach of my hands. And because the silly license isn’t well thought at all, I cannot translate all that stuff! You know how happy I would be If I could? Aaaaa, such joy!

I wanna translate this Risus SRD : < And I wanna better license for that, which covers all possible uses of the game, not omitting a very important part cause something something : < Is that so much? : <

Why no Creative Commons? : < *sad pupper face*

But seriously, not being able to work on all that cause the author haven’t thought that people might wanna translate…! x_x I feel so angry! And this all is very pointless! Why all this, aaaaaaa!

PS. Do you think that this all is because most USA Americans cannot speak Spanish (and Britons French)? Or is there some other force at work and I cannot fully comprehend? 0_O

PPS. Do you think I should make a meme about all these struggles of mine…? XD

PPPS. I tried to focus on the translating/frustration aspect of my problem, but right now I am not sure if that really did work…? Sorry? :( But I would like to focus the discussion on other things than the legal stuff? Such as "obvious" things when you speak only one language, which is dominant on the planet?

[halfeye]

Such as "obvious" things when you speak only one language, which is dominant on the planet?

Russian? Spanish? (there are a lot of chinese languages, so it's not Chinese).

I'm pretty sure that in terms of numbers there is not yet one dominant language, it may come, and it could be English, but it's not certain, and English is being changed by all the people using it as their second language.

According to Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risus

Risus itself has been translated into Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.[

[Kaworu]

Eh :-P

1. English does not has the biggest number of native speakers. But I believe, when you count both native and non-native speakers, plus position in international trade, politics, entertainment etc., English is number one. And as such native speakers of Spanish and Chinese learn English in schools, and native speakers of English usually have no proficiency in a foreign language (which, BTW, is a great problem in post-Brexit Britain, for example).

2. Yes, I realize in how many languages Risus got translated. However, I believe (?) every single time the author needed to give "a-ok" for the translation to process. And when it is totally possible for me to translate the basis Risus rules [which vanished out of the Polish Internet a long time ago] (I would just need to reach the author, who is currently unavailable), I seriously doubt I could reach every author of every Risus special rule, NPC and adventure. In fact, the biggest website for Risus goodies do not even specify who is the author of a given item. Which makes (under current license) translating all the goddies impossible.

Boooooooo :( *sad pupper face*

[Tarmor]

Where is my problem? Well… the Risus license gives you free access to the system and allows you to publish anything you wanna. But… literally, it does not convey anything about translations x_x And according to my understanding of the license and the copyrights, “just” translating all the goodies cause I wanna would violate the law.

Why would "translating all the goodies cause I wanna" violate the law? There's really nothing that stops you translating something into any language you would like to - for your own use. What do you want to do with a translation?

[Fyraltari]

Why would "translating all the goodies cause I wanna" violate the law? There's really nothing that stops you translating something into any language you would like to - for your own use. What do you want to do with a translation?

Presumably share it for free.

[Tarmor]

Kaworu, If it's to share... why not track down a copy in the language you want?

Risus looks like its owned by Big Dice Games. The RisusRPG.com page has a contact email address.
The RisusUniverse site has a File page with multiple language rules. (Including Polish!)
Maybe one of these would help.

[Kaworu]

Yup, Risus Universe has a lot of content (yea, I wanna publish the translation online). But, as I said, the licence pretty much omits any translations' issues. So I believe (?) I would need to track any author of RisusUniverse contents and ask them separately about all this stuff. Which is pretty much impossible T_T

EDIT: Nah, I just looked again, they are authors at the very beginning of files. Still, asking them all... T_T

Why oh why the Risus License says nothing about translations? T_T *dies tragically, apparently*

PS. I even did make a nice Wordpress website for the translations... which won't happen : <