- From: Lynne Rosenthal <lynne.rosenthal@nist.gov>
- Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2003 07:15:59 -0500
- To: www-qa-wg@w3.org
- Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.2.20030304070510.01c25cd8@mailserver.nist.gov>
QA Working Group Teleconference Monday, 24 February -2003 -- Scribe: Lynne Rosenthal Attendees: (PC) Patrick Curran (Sun Microsystems) (KD) Karl Dubost (W3C, WG co-chair) (KG) Kirill Gavrylyuk (Microsoft) (DH) Dominique Hazaël-Massieux (W3C) - (LH) Lofton Henderson (CGMO - WG co-chair) (SM) Sandra Martinez (NIST) (LR) Lynne Rosenthal (NIST - IG co-chair) Visitor (JR) Joseph Reagle (W3C) Regrets: (dd) Dimitris Dimitriadis (Ontologicon) (MS) Mark Skall (NIST) (AT) Andrew Thackrah (Open Group) Absent: (PF) Peter Fawcett (RealNetworks) Summary of New Action Items: AI-2003-0224-1: JR to summarize discussion, Feb 25 Agenda: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Feb/0115.html Previous Telecon Minutes: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Feb/0112.html 1.) Roll call 11am (ET), membership 2) Licenses for Test Materials. JR will summarize the discussion and conclusions, let WG review and then, present to W3C management and legal. Teleconference facilities available in Boston if we need to continue the discussion. Discussion follows [1a] 1.1 Nature of test materials (terminology) 1.1 test cases (documents) 1.2 test software/harness (software) 1.3 granularity The agreed upon terminology was test cases, test software and test documentation. Often it is necessary to supplement the test suite provided by the WG in order to run it. A WG may specify the bindings and abstract representation. The user would need to do the binding augment the test cases with the binding, harness, etc. This is a useful distinction. KG indicated that a collection of test cases may not be used as a whole, but as a collection. Test cases can be used, subsumed into other sets. Is this something to that should be captured in the license? JR stated that it the test cases and harness can be treated in separate licenses. This is an option to consider. #2. Common license requirements 2.1 warranties/liabilities. KG asked about indemnifications and limitations on distribution. His concern is mostly with test software. JR states that there are two views: distribute materials under a license and use materials under a license. KG is concerned about being able to take the software and incorporate it into his own company’s software and distribute it. With redistribution, limit the problems of warranties/liabilities, be protected from making a mistake. JR since W3C is not willing to indemnify the use of these materials, then a company would be at risk for using these materials. Also, not sure that a W3C change would help this situation. W3C wants companies to distribute, W3C restrictions to distribution may have unintended consequences, e.g., interfere with mirroring. PC thinks that changing redistribution may not be the fix, rather using some standard language to handle the liability question may work. 2.2 scope of use. Concerned with limiting the damages from potential misuses. Provide some protection and represent the intentional use of test materials. Competitors can use submitted tests in a way that wasn’t intended (and can’t control) that could cause damage. Doesn’t this relate back to warranties/liabilities? Isn’t this more of a competitive issue. Specifically, you are happy to donate tests but not want competitors to use against you. JR: any examples of this? KG: could be a test case that can bring down a web service. This hasn’t been something addressed by W3C and it isn’t clear how to enforce this. Some licenses out there go beyond copyright. W3C is not trying to create end user shrink wrap that is restricting other things. Approach this with caution. LH there doesn’t seem to be consensus about this issue. PC: the competitive aspect can be handled in other ways, with respect to malicious use, can leave this up to the law. JR: if you change the tests so that you can pass them and claim conformance, this would get resolved by the market (egg on your face) and violate copyright. This could also be handled by trademark or other strategies. 2.3 Redistribution. KG: redistribution: limit the problems of warrenties/liabilities in that you might not want your customers to have these things. Concern for the test environment (code/harness) PC: Test suites downloaded from W3C are not whole, still need to make modifications and/or tailor them to make them useful in the real world. A company may want to pass these changes to their customers. Prohibiting redistribution would make this difficult. For example, a company may want to make additional modifications to the test suite or incorporate them into their own test harness or even substitute a test harness. KG does the same - not use harnesses of public test suite, use their own. SVG distributes 3 different harness, but we all know that nothing is all complete. CR: But put the distinction on test cases, as opposed to all the documentation, harness, etc that needs to be present. There is a spectrum in W3 of what is produced: those that are near complete and those that need additional pieces. Providing a standardized way to describe the test cases, may enable the development of a generic test harness. Collection of test cases and metadata could be assembled by those using it (or distributors). JR: this sounds like a useful future resource. Until assured, we don’t want to limit redistribution. Will still want to let people take something from W3C and map it to their processes and then redistribute. JR: this will be a new issue in my summary, i.e., potential harm (liability) when give test suites to your customer. This is not a first class issue in of itself. LH: we have drifted into 2.4 modification/derivation work. Hard to write something that fits all scenarios. KG: document license lets you copy pages as long as you don’t redistribute. JR: This is called fair-use. Can get special permissions for translations, etc. FAQ document explains these. Discussion about modifying test suites to make them complete. DOM provides a core set of test cases that need additional stuff added to them. SVG doesn’t. Maybe there needs to be selective restrictions depending on what component of the test suite you are dealing with. Do we want to restrict a company from combining test cases from various W3C test suites or incorporate into a broader company test suite. What if some of the W3C tests are wrong and in the short term, a company corrects them. You shouldn’t exclude or change test but annotation them to indicate that they are not correct and in process to correct. Some harnesses have the ability to exclude those things that they think are buggy. As long as you don’t claim conformance to the W3C tests, then this is not a problem. JR: The easiest way to deal with this is the Software license that permits adaptation (creation of derivative work) as long as you do not make a claim of conformance to W3C test suite. KG: if our concerns about liability were addressed we wouldn't need to restrict modification/derivation. PC: is it possible to create derived work, publish and sell it? JR: no problem with members putting it into member products and selling, but must put in software license disclaimers and acknowledgements. PC: we are under pressure to create derivative test suites but we fear this can lead to a dilution of the "one true" test suite. 2.5 Link PC: Wants an explicit grant to invoke and apply (e.g., to change interfaces), but not the right to change test cases. JR: document license grants the right to make a copy, make adaptations, deriviations, it is an issue to add public performance and public display. KG indicated that the Document license might be appropriate to the document test cases. Discussion to continue at F2F JR: to write summary of discussion wed. Ajourn 12:30 (ET) [1a] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Feb/0111.html [1b] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Feb/0042.html [2a] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Feb/0092.html [2b] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Feb/0103.html [3a] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2002Nov/0044.html [3b] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Jan/0027.html [3c] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Jan/0041.html [3d] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Feb/0010.html [4] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Feb/0077.html [5a] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Feb/0089.html [5b] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Feb/0104.html
Received on Tuesday, 4 March 2003 07:16:48 UTC