From: Dirk Detering <detering@...>
Date: 2002-07-03T17:00:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Juergen Katins and the German translation

"Hal E. Fulton" schrieb:
> It is true that many negative comments have
> been made about this project. These were due
> only to the license issue (and you responses
> to the objections). 

Yes, indeed.
I did not know about this translation before,
so I took the original (PDF) for my first
approach to Ruby.
I had a quick look at it now.
As a native german speaker I want to express
my appreciation of the translation.
While used to read IT stuff in english, it
is much more handy and faster to read in the 
native language during daily work.
I recognized this effect just in a few 
minutes of comparision between the orignal
and the translation.

Juergen, I highly appreciate your german
foreword too, as it expresses your intention
and motivation of doing this work as a reward
to the open source community, whose results
you enjoy in daily work.

And I agree in the advantages of having an
online version, easy readable and adaptable
regarding to changes in the topic it describes
(the Ruby PL).

> You were perceived by many
> as a thief, and a rather impolite one at that.

We don't know if there was any prehistory 
between Juergen, Dave and Andy.

But me too feel sad, that this case has not
been handled in a more polite way.

You refer to the open source *community*.
Regarding that I was very astonished you
did not synchronise your work with the
original authors, what I consider the
naturally way.

> In my personal opinion: Restore the OPL, apologize
> to Dave, and let us all forget any negatives.

I support that and would be glad if this
would be possible.

> My German is not good enough to appreciate the
> quality of the work, 

My German is.

> I think that your energy and ability could be
> a significant addition to the Ruby community.

Yes, indeed.
As a native documentation is a very important fact
for the propagation of /software in general|Ruby/
to a wide user community.

> So I would ask you to stay and contribute. It is
> possible to make great contributions without
> any controversy.

It is.

Many greetings

Dirk Detering