Re: Licensing

Rigo Wenning wrote:
> On Monday 25 February 2008, fantasai wrote:
> [...]
>> My personal recommendation is using the 3-clause BSD license (which
>> forbids using W3C's name to promote or endorse derivatives without
>> express written consent) together with a trademark policy that
>> protects "CSS Conformance Test" and similar. Our test suite build
>> systems can automatically alter the test titles to add or remove
>> the trade marks for use on W3C vs. use elsewhere.
> 
> you suggested this already to me and I have taken due notice of this 
> suggestion. David Baron had similar suggestions. Note well that 
> trademark protection takes a long time to put into place. We are 
> exploring all those solutions. 
> 
> But thanks to remind us again. 

I hope team-legal noticed Microsoft's latest announcement:

   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-css-testsuite/2008Mar/0000.html

   "These tests are being offered under the BSD license" -- Chris Wilson

This means whatever license W3C uses, those 700+ tests will also be
available under the BSD License. In other words, W3C cannot add any
effective licensing restrictions on top of the BSD license for these
tests because Microsoft's copy will always be available under the BSD
license.

David Baron, Boris Zbarsky, and Lachlan Hunt are all also willing to
personally relicense their tests under the BSD 3-clause, so effectively
a large proportion of CSS test contributions available under the BSD
3-clause, which renders any licensing restrictions W3C might impose on
these tests useless.

Progress on soliciting more contributions is blocked on having an
uncertain licensing situation for the test suites. What's holding you
guys up? And when can we expect resolution of this situation?

~fantasai

Received on Wednesday, 12 March 2008 08:08:07 UTC