Links to German 2.0 and 3.0 ports are broken on German deeds

[fbennets]

Describe the bug The links to the German 2.0 and 3.0 ports of all licences are broken in the German deeds. This is an urgent issue, as under German law this could render all the licenses of CC 2.0 DE and 3.0 DE currently in use legally ineffective. There have been bug reports about the German 3.0 BY and similar issues.

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

Go to any German deed of 2.0 or 3.0 generation such as https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/ or https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/de/

Click on Lizenz The corresponding URL (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/legalcode.de or https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/de/legalcode.de) leads nowhere.

Expected behavior The correct URL for the legal code is https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/legalcode or https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/de/legalcode

Additional context Related issues: Link to German 3.0 BY port is broken: https://github.com/creativecommons/creativecommons.org/issues/1012 Link to German 3.0 BY: https://github.com/creativecommons/creativecommons.org/issues/796 Similar old issue with Dutch licenses: https://github.com/creativecommons/creativecommons.org/issues/54 Similar issue for Devnations licenses: https://github.com/creativecommons/creativecommons.org/issues/749

[TimidRobot]

Thank you for documenting these issues

[LeChasseur]

This is a serious issue. People aren't able to look into the concrete license obligations since the link from https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/ to the license text ("Lizenztext") is dead: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/legalcode.de. I hope this can be prioritised. Thanks in advance!

[LeChasseur]

Some additional information that might be helpful: It depends on the language on https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/ whether or not the link works. If you use the English version (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/deed.en) the link to the license text is fine. It is important that the landing page is https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/legalcode since many (offline) publications contain this link as reference to the license text.

[TimidRobot]

This issue is not limited to German (de jurisdiction). It appears to impact all jurisdictions with a single language. I have not yet looked into the details within the CC License Engine.

[LeChasseur]

Thanks for checking. As said before: this is crucial from a legal point of you. Thanks!

[kgodey]

This is a high priority for us to fix, however, it will take some time because we need to resolve underlying infrastructural issues with https://github.com/creativecommons/cc.engine to be able to fix this.

[LeChasseur]

I understand that there is a bug in the engine. Unfortunately, I'm not a developer and I cannot help here. Would it be possible to include (statically) a redirect from https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/legalcode.de to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/legalcode?

[TimidRobot]

@LeChasseur we appreciate the gravity of this error. The work required to resolve it is my primary priority.

I am not pursuing a mitigation (ex. a redirect) at this time as it is more complex and involves than it initially appears. It would also take away resources from solving the underlying source of the problem.

I realize this is an unsatisfying and frustrating answer given the general absence of work on the CC Engine repositories over the last decade. However, you can follow my work on the dev2019 branches (linked from the dev2019 branch on creativecommons/creativecommons.org).

[mzeinstra]

The temporary fix is to change the URL in transifex and remove the .de postfix.

I did this for the Netherlands to have both the 3.0 and 4.0 online. The only drawback is that for the 4.0 the Dutch Deed page refers to the English legalcode page.

I would much prefer this being changed for the german as well, having an additional click (to go from english legal code to german code) far outweighs not being able to use the 3.0 and 2.0 legalcodes.

[fbennets]

Thanks for the active discussion, a quick temporary fix as suggested by @mzeinstra would be great for the moment!

[kgodey]

@mzeinstra thanks for the tip, I've implemented it for the German translation and it's live now. I have not fixed it for any of the other jurisdictions yet.

[TimidRobot]

The fix made by @kgodey are represented in the following commit:

• https://github.com/creativecommons/cc.i18n/commit/86e3f016246f3eb821812ab6cd768a7b1c2dd354

As for the larger issue with 4.0 links (and additional context), see Links from 4.0 Deeds to Legalcode do not maintain language selection · Issue #32 · creativecommons/cc.engine