[Bug 13423] Remove the Editing APIs section. It's extremely incomplete and contradicts my editing spec on a lot of points, so it will confuse implementers.

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=13423

--- Comment #38 from Doug Schepers <schepers@w3.org> 2011-08-19 19:09:17 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #34)
> Just to ensure we're all clear on copyright and patents, following is a rather
> good description of the differences between the two:

Shelley, we all know the difference between copyrights and patents.  


> "Copyright protects original works of authorship, while a patent protects
> inventions or discoveries. Ideas and discoveries are not protected by the
> copyright law, although the way in which they are expressed may be."
> 
> I'm not a lawyer, but this tells me that a free to use copyright on Aryeh's
> text only covers the text, not the idea. We can copy the text, but this 
> doesn't cover implementation. 
> 
> If we implement the idea, then we're running into potential patent problems. 
> 
> This is from the US Copyright Office[1]. I imagine the same or something
> similar applies in other countries. 
> 
> That's why the location of the document matters.

Yes, and that's why it's good that he's bringing it to a Community Group
(assuming he follows through on joining the CG, which is his stated intent). 
CGs have both a patent policy and a copyright policy:
 http://www.w3.org/community/about/agreements/cla/

But it's not enough for Aryeh alone to make patent (and copyright)
commitments... since this spec is based on the technical work of others,
including browser vendors like Microsoft (who started the work originally), he
isn't the one who is likely to control the patents (and neither is Google)...
this is why we need, at some point, to either get the key stakeholders (i.e.
likely patent holders) to make patent commitments, either by joining the CG, or
though bringing the Editing API spec, once it is mature, to a WG that has those
stakeholders in it... probably the HTML WG.

This is not a new issue with Community Groups... getting the right stakeholders
in a group is always a concern at W3C.  CGs are actually a very interesting and
potentially powerful tool to make standardization faster and easier while still
getting patent commitments.

I'm very happy to see Aryeh kicking the tires on this new activity:
https://plus.google.com/100662365103380396132/posts/TSCsoGYSC2h

So, in relation to this bug, I don't have a strong opinion on whether the text
is removed from the HTML5 spec, if the contradictions are resolved and the text
in the HTML5 spec can be made a proper subset of Aryeh's spec, because then we
get broader patent commitment.  If these changes can't be made, then it is
probably better to remove it.

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Received on Friday, 19 August 2011 19:09:22 UTC