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

On Mar 5, 2009, at 11:03 AM, Sam Ruby wrote:

> Dailey, David P. wrote:
>> I am not sure if Philippe's intention was to have this discussion  
>> here at public-html as well
>
> I'm not certain what plh's intentions were, but given that we were  
> asked to provide use cases as a group, I would like to gather  
> together a response as a group.  I am planning on attending the AC  
> meeting later this month, and would like to be able to represent the  
> working group's position on this matter.
>
> From what I gather so far, this draft Excerpt License is not viewed  
> as sufficient.  In particular:
>
> 1) Several (not just Ian's, but others as well) documents that are  
> being developed with the intent of becoming the basis of a W3C  
> Recommendation or Note will continue to be developed outside of the  
> W3C.
>
> 2) Many in this working group will continue to point people who may  
> be considering producing a derived work at the MIT-licensed version  
> of such documents hosted outside of the W3C.
>
> Let me know if this impression is inaccurate.

I believe there were at least two additional issues raised:

3) The license does not appear to be compatible with the LGPL or GPL,  
thus preventing the use of spec excerpts (possibly even including IDL,  
unless that is licensed otherwise) in Gecko, WebKit, or other open  
source browser engines using these or similar licenses.

4) The license is novel and does not match the terms of other existing  
licenses, thus creating unwelcome open source license proliferation.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Thursday, 5 March 2009 20:05:34 UTC