- From: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>
- Date: Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:23:18 -0800
- To: Jonas Sicking <jonas@sicking.cc>
- Cc: "Dailey, David P." <david.dailey@sru.edu>, Chris Wilson <Chris.Wilson@microsoft.com>, public-html@w3.org
On Mar 5, 2009, at 3:57 PM, Jonas Sicking wrote: > >> I think that in practice, W3C specifications will remain canonical >> and >> authoritative, not because of licensing, but because the W3C is >> respected as an organization, and is seen as the definitive source of >> Web standards. So long as W3C remains a good steward, forks will not >> happen or at least will not go anywhere. If it fails to be a good >> steward, forks will happen no matter what the license says. > > Indeed. I think it's W3Cs name, not its licenses, that makes people > honor its specifications. Responding since this quoted bit was originally my comment. Perhaps the W3C's needs could be addressed via trademark rather than copyright licensing. It seems fair to say no one should be able to claim a derivative work is W3C HTML5, or to use the W3C's logo, or to otherwise misrepresent the nature of the work. I believe LGPL and GPL are compatible with names or logos being trademarked, and with a requirement that differences to the original must be clearly indicated; indeed they have such a requirement themselves. I will agree with Sam though that it's better to get an opinion from someone like Eben Moglen on these issues than to speculate. Regards, Maciej
Received on Friday, 6 March 2009 00:23:59 UTC