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

On Mar 5, 2009, at 2:40 PM, Sam Ruby wrote:

>
> From my perspective, that's not 3) and 4) but 1) and 2) of a different
> list.  Complete that second list, and you have the original use cases.

Sure, I'm mainly pointing out that the license given doesn't meet many  
of the original use cases; the spec forking use case is not the only  
one it fails. It does not work for LGPL software and it does not  
really work for MIT-licensed software.

> Trust me, I fully understand and appreciate why you want [L]GPL
> compatibility, but I can equally forcefully argue the other side: you
> are involved in the production of software that implements HTML 4.01
> today, right?  Anything better than that is only a nice to have,  
> right?
> Please realize that we are fundamentally challenging something that is
> core to what the W3C is and how it operates...

The proposed license doesn't really provide any benefit over the  
original W3C licenses, for WebKit's purposes. Either way, we have to  
avoid incorporating portions of the spec directly. So that's not  
really a counter-argument, it's just a rejection of my use case.

> I don't want to go there.  This process where we produce use cases,  
> hear
> nothing for weeks, and then get a response that intentionally ignores
> some use cases and unintentionally doesn't satisfy others is
> fundamentally broken.
>
> I want a dialog.

I'm totally in agreement on this. I think a direct, interactive  
conversation with the decision makers is the only way we will come to  
a good resolution.

> Until we get that, my preference is that we simply reaffirm the  
> original
> use cases, indicate that we are in agreement that the draft we have  
> seen
> does not satisfy those use cases, and more carefully and succinctly
> spell out the implications of these issue in terms that are relevant  
> to
> the W3C.

I was trying to start on stating which of our original use cases it  
does not meet. Perhaps that is better done by starting with the  
original list of use cases, and see which we feel are satisfied and  
which are not.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Thursday, 5 March 2009 23:07:53 UTC