Re: Draft W3C Excerpt License (Re: WG Decision - spec license use cases)

On Thursday 2009-03-05 02:49 +0000, Ian Hickson wrote:
> > It is my understanding that this current draft addresses the use cases 
> > presented by the HTML Working Group at [1], with the exception of 
> > continuing/forking the development of the WG deliverables in a non-W3C 
> > venue whether or not W3C and/or the HTML WG cease operations (the last 
> > two use cases in Henri's list). Uses like forking of a specification 
> > would remain prohibited to protect the due process and the consensus 
> > found in a chartered Working Group.
> 
> This use case is the main one that I'm concerned about, FWIW.

It's the main one I'm concerned about as well.  Failing to address
this use case would mean I'd continue to encourage as much spec
development as possible to happen in WHATWG, so that the specs would
continue to be available under a liberal license.

I'm concerned about it because it's protection against a working
group going off on crazy tangents,  because it's protection against
the W3C not continuing to exist in its current form for the
indefinite future, and because it's protection against the W3C again
(as it did earlier in this decade) largely losing interest in
standards for Web documents.

-David

-- 
L. David Baron                                 http://dbaron.org/
Mozilla Corporation                       http://www.mozilla.com/

Received on Thursday, 5 March 2009 08:18:01 UTC