Re: Proposed Permissive Copyright Experiment in HTML Working Group

On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 5:07 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, May 1, 2013 at 1:49 PM, Philippe Le Hegaret <plh@w3.org> wrote:
>> Today the W3C Director proposed to the W3C Membership a draft revision
>> to the HTML Working Group charter:
>>  http://www.w3.org/html/wg/charter/2013/
>>
>> The charter is unique because of a provision that would let the group
>> decide whether to publish extension specifications under CC-BY, which is
>> more permissive than W3C's Document License. The proposal intends to
>> encourage collaboration.
>>
>> The W3C Membership reviewed a draft HTML Working Group charter in
>> February when one Member registered a Formal Objection and requested
>> changes around licensing. Given the importance of this issue and a new
>> proposal focused on extension specifications, the Director now seeks
>> feedback from the Membership.
>>
>> The HTML extension specifications present an opportunity to experiment
>> with an alternate, more permissive license, in response to Member
>> feedback. We anticipate that the experiment can inform broader licensing
>> discussions.
>>
>> We look forward to hearing from the full Membership on this important
>> topic; Member feedback will play an important role in our next steps.
>
> I strongly support this.  The previous stance, often justified with
> the argument that the restrictive copyright was necessary to "prevent
> forking", was terrible.  We should prevent forking by continuing to
> publish the best specification, not by trying to takedown
> alternatives.
>
> ~TJ
>


+1

--
Brian Kardell :: @briankardell :: hitchjs.com

Received on Wednesday, 1 May 2013 21:20:23 UTC