Daily Archives: June 12, 2020

Email Answer: Can I translate Python for Everybody?

I really enjoy getting my cup of coffee in the morning and composing a letter to someone who has inquired about translating my Python textbook.   Here is how it goes.

Nice to meet you,

I agree with you that it is important to translate introductory materials to a students own language and want to support translation efforts in every way I can.

I have written a document that captures most of the details of translation the book and course materials:

https://github.com/csev/py4e/blob/master/TRANSLATION.md

The simple answer to your licensing question is ‘yes’  – everything in my github repository except the book is CC-BY.  Electronic copies of the book are CC-BY-SA because of the prior copyrights of the materials I used to build the book.  Print copies of the book are CC-BY-NC – which means the only thing that you need permission from me is to sell print copies of the resulting book which I will give once I see that the translation is complete and of high quality.

Simply charging credit for the courses does *not* trigger the NC clause.   You are welcome to use my materials and charge for the course.  You could even print the book and sell it at cost of printing (no profit) if you like.

So that should give you the permission that you need.  But how these translations usually work out is that they become a collaborative effort with me providing some technical assistance for things like automatic generation of the book files, help getting the book on Amazon, help making a new translated cover for the book,  help getting the book on Amazon, and even hosting a web site like https://es.py4e.com if the translation goes beyond just the book.

So you have my permission – but in addition you have my offer of help, support and promotion of your work.

I look forward to seeing your translation of our book.

Charles Severance