For most packages that collaborate with the Translation Project, the translations should be disclaimed in writing by the translators before these translations are accepted for inclusion in the distributions. There is a form (see below) that translators should fill out and send to the Free Software Foundation.

The Free Software Foundation acts like a kind of attorney that witnesses the disclaimer. Some translators mis-read the translation disclaimer as assigning the translation works to the FSF, and are disturbed by this impression. Such an assignment is not the case. The FSF just acts as a recipient and attorney for your papers, not as an assignee.

A translator usually disclaims all translations he or she could produce for any package. Yet the need for disclaimers is decided on a per package basis. When a package maintainer requires disclaimers, disclaimers are needed for that package for all translations coming from any team. For GNU packages, maintainers do not really have a choice, as the GNU project requires disclaimers for almost all its packages. For non-GNU packages, the choice is up to the package maintainer. The safest for translators is to fill out and return disclaimers -- in this way they put themselves free, once and for all, to work on all translations they will feel like, whether GNU or not.

An unfilled form is available here, currently only a plain text version:

• Disclaimer (plain ASCII)

The FSF noticed that the PDF version (and possibly others) of the translation disclaimer did not include the question at the bottom asking which team the person is translating for. This is on the ASCII version, but not many people use that, apparently. It would probably make our jobs easier to make sure that all the versions included that part -- in the meantime, however, please make sure you write for which team you intend to translate.

Once you have the file, you should print it out on paper, fill it out and sign it with a pen, slip the results into a paper envelope, lick a stamp and send it by non-electronic mail, using the old slow way, to the address given in the form. It may take many days for your envelope to reach the FSF's headquarters, and maybe two more weeks before your form is properly processed there. You have to account for postal delays, but also for the fact postal mail is handled in bursts at the FSF, maybe twice per month. When the disclaimer is received by the FSF, a notification of receipt is sent by the FSF to the coordinator of the Translation Project, which in turn acknowledges the receipt by emailing to both the translator and his/her team. One full month is not an overestimate, and you will be notified when processing of your disclaimer is complete.

The file AUTHORS holds a copy of all notifications received from the FSF. The Translation Project robot does not read that information directly, however. See the page for your own national team to see what the robot knows about you.