Re: What is the "open web" ?

Jeff Jaffe <jeff@w3.org> wrote:

>>> Some would extend this to "Free Open Source Software".
>> I am not sure how this is meant. The choice of Open Source licenses used
>> by an Open Source implementation should not be restricted by a W3C
>> recommendation directly or indirectly.
>
> The distinction between FOSS and general open source licenses came up
> several weeks ago on this mailing list.
>
> I don't believe that we've ever formulated a formal policy that W3C
> Recommendations must be implementable in open source, but it is
> certainly a practice that we have followed assiduously for several years
> and continue to do so.
>
> While we have the practice of only providing Recommendations that are
> implementable in open source, we haven't said that each Recommendation
> must be implementable in every open source license that's out there.
> Hence we've not said that every Recommendation must be implementable in
> (e.g.) GPL.

If you find that a specification is not implementable in GPL, it
probably is not implementable in open source software at all.

It might be implementable in some software that is licensed under a
license which is also used for some open source software but which
unlike the GPL does not actually ensure that the software is open
source software. For example, suppose I hold a patent and in addition
I hold copyright on software code that implements the patent. I can
grant a permissive copyright license to release control of my
copyright but still enforce the patent. The resulting situation does
not fulfill the definition of open source software.

Greetings,
Norbert
FreedomHTML.org

Received on Wednesday, 5 June 2013 06:39:06 UTC