Re: Spec license

On Tuesday 2009-02-03 21:56 +0000, Philip TAYLOR (Ret'd) wrote:
> L. David Baron wrote:
>> Depending on this point, however, is somewhat problematic, since it
>> means that we can't split out parts of the spec and give them to a
>> different editor 
>
> I understand what you are saying up to this point
> (even if I don't follow your logic, but that
> almost certainly depends on what follows) ...
>
>> who doesn't independently publish under a different
>> license.
>
> but I don't understand this second part at all.

I mean that if:

 1. we split the spec, and,

 2. the editor of the part that we split out didn't publish it at
    WHATWG under a more liberal license than the W3C document
    license (what I meant above by independently publish under a
    different license),

then the part that we split out (or, more precisely, any revisions
to it) would likely be locked in to a much less permissive license
that could not be used in many software projects and could not be
taken outside of W3C if the need arose.

On Tuesday 2009-02-03 13:47 -0800, Rob Sayre wrote:
> On 2/3/09 1:41 PM, L. David Baron wrote:
>> In other words, depending on it means some of us (e.g., me) are
>> going to be (at least somewhat) against splitting the spec because
>> of the license issues.
>>    
>
> Doesn't this objection assume the other editors won't also republish  
> under similarly permissive terms? It seems to me that this is an issue  
> you would have to look at in each individual case.

True.

-David

-- 
L. David Baron                                 http://dbaron.org/
Mozilla Corporation                       http://www.mozilla.com/

Received on Tuesday, 3 February 2009 23:02:49 UTC