RE: proposed Test Materials license

Hi Joseph et al,

1. When the Document License does not work for publishing test
Materials? An example would be any downloadable test materials package
that would require modification (even just platform/implementation
adjustments) in order to be used for a product testing.
	An existing example is a W3C DOM test suite, which is published
under the modified W3C Software License and cannot be published under
Document License. 
	Future XQuery test suite will face this issue, since baseline
comparison and even running XQuery tests would require certain
adaptation to the implementation needs and therefore a "derivative
work". 

2. Why the Software License does not work for Test Materials? Using GPL
compatible licenses like the W3C Software License for test materials
without restricting the scope of use
-	limits availability of the published test materials for certain
vendors
-	prevents certain potential contributors from submitting test
materials to the W3C test suite.
Both are key requirements encouraged by the QA WG for any test
development process in the W3C. Limiting the scope of use for the Test
Materials solely towards testing would solve these 2 issues, at least
for Microsoft. Limiting the scope of use in the copyright license is a
common practice among vendors, so I'm wondering why would it be a
problem for the W3C?

3. I do understand the resources concern that you mentioned in the first
paragraph. But I would point out that because we do not have a common
license for test materials, the W3C team has to maintain a separate
copyright license for each test suite, when the original licenses do not
fit. Example is a DOM Test suite license that is a modification of the
Software License, essentially limiting the derivation work.

Thanks
   



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph Reagle [mailto:reagle@w3.org]
> Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 9:26 AM
> To: Lofton Henderson
> Cc: www-qa-wg@w3.org; Karin Rivard; Marija V. Jankovich
> Subject: Re: proposed Test Materials license
> 
> 
> On Friday 08 November 2002 10:41 am, Lofton Henderson wrote:
> > The "Operational Guidelines" of the QA Working Group (QAWG) define
> > guidelines for the process and operational aspects of the quality
> > practices of the W3C WGs.  One of the considerations is licenses
> > applicable to test materials [1].  We have had discussion in the
past,
> > and concluded that W3C Document License was better than W3C Software
> > License, for a number of reasons.
> 
> Hi Loften (and QA WG)!
> 
> To set some context for my response, the support (e.g., email
questions
> and
> the FAQ) and maintenance (e.g., tweaking and fixing bugs) of the
copyright
> licenses is a non-trivial cost. <smile/> First, there's the W3C Team
time
> (mostly me) and more importantly the extremely rare time of high cost
of
> counsel. So, for these reasons we have a great interest in minimizing
the
> number of legal materials we have to develop and support. So
regardless of
> the substantive points below I would expect the threshold for adoption
of
> a
> new license to be quite high.
> 
> To start, variances such as the terminology of "personal,
non-transferable
> and non-sublicenseable" are terms of the art which I would have to
consult
> and get approval of counsel for.
> 
> > As indicated in the "Note" at the end of checkpoint 6.2 [1], the
QAWG
> now
> > believes that a Test Materials (TM) License is needed.  A draft
proposed
> > Test Materials License is at [2].  The rationales for a TM License
> > include: * Test Materials are specific documents provided for a
specific,
> > defined and limited purpose. The license to use and copy them can
> > therefore be specific, defined and limited.
> 
> There's two scopes involved. First, is the scope of the license on the
> material it applies to. This might not be your concern and it can be
> addressed by being very specific in the materials about exactly which
> materials (in a cvs checkout directory, tar/zip ball, branch of our
web
> space) the license applies to. Second, is the scope of use provided by
the
> license. Trying to govern the use of materials (i.e., "solely for the
> purpose of testing compliance") via a license is tricky. We haven't
done
> this in any copyright license before. We do make exceptions in the FAQ
for
> well known scenarios (translation and annotation) in creating
derivative
> works of documents, but not in the first order (primary) rights of
copying.
> 
> >     * The W3C SOFTWARE and DOCUMENT licenses are more general in
nature
> > and do not provide for the precise license grant. The W3C SOFTWARE
and
> > DOCUMENT were not intended to cover the conveyance of rights
effected by
> > the proposed "Notice and License for Test Materials."
> 
> Regardless of their present titles, which are still fairly fitting,
they
> now
> serve two functional classes of license: a OSI/GPL compatible license
> (i.e., software), and a license which restricts derivative works
> (document). For instance, while some might not consider a test suite
or
> DTD
> "software", they have been released under the software license.
> 
> >     * Any ambiguity that may exist with respect to someone's right
to
> use
> > the test materials under the "one size fits all" W3C SOFTWARE and
> > DOCUMENT licenses are expressly clarified by the proposed "Notice
and
> > License for Test Materials."
> > In addition, the following is expressed by some W3C members who are
> > potential contributors of test materials:
> >     * Essentially this document addresses the ambiguity of the
Software
> > license that makes it impossible for vendors to submit a testing
code.
> > In other words, some potential TM submitters will not submit
materials
> if
> > they are under the Software (or Document) license for re-use and
> > redistribution.
> >
> > We look forward to your thoughts and feedback on this.
> 
> While I certainly appreciate a complete proposal, could we put that
aside
> for the moment and look at the specific scenarios why the document
license
> is not considered satisfactory?

Received on Thursday, 14 November 2002 01:16:19 UTC