Re: Mozilla Proposal for HTML5 Spec Licence

The below message is the original Mozilla proposal for the use of CC0. 
Before we sent it, there was some internal debate within Mozilla as to 
whether to propose CC0, MIT or BSD, because all of those licences met 
the goals we outline. In the end we wanted to be specific, and went for 
CC0, but there were no strong arguments for one of those three over the 
others.

Rereading the document, one could replace the first two sentences of 
paragraph 7 with:

"So Mozilla wishes to propose the use of the MIT License for the HTML5 
spec. This licence is a well-understood, familiar licence with a long 
track record in the software industry."

and still have the rest of the argument be equally valid.

Given that a number of working group participants have hinted that they 
would support MIT but not CC0, and given that Mozilla is happy with 
either, I request that the chairs add it to the upcoming ballot based on 
this rationale.

Gerv

On 11/04/11 19:03, Gervase Markham wrote:
> This message is Mozilla's alternative proposal for the licence for the
> HTML5 specification.
>
> Our understanding is that the goal of the various licensing options
> proposed is to prevent the modification and republishing of the entire
> specification ("forking") but otherwise to meet all of the use cases[0],
> which request permission for a wide variety of types of reuse.
>
> As noted, we believe that the ability to modify and republish in this
> way is an important freedom. This message and alternative proposal is
> not intended as a criticism of the work of the PSIG, because licences
> which permit it were expressly outside its remit.
>
> Those who wish to prevent 'forking' need to be specific - are they
> against the forking of the specification, or the divergence of
> implementations?
>
> If I were to take the HTML5 spec, make some changes to it, put it up on
> my website as GervTML5, and send a message to the browser vendors
> declaring myself as the new canonical source of web standards, I suggest
> that the effect this would have on the W3C and the progression of the
> HTML5 standard would be minor - confined, perhaps, to a raised eyebrow
> and a snicker at my arrogance and hubris. The forking of the
> specification, in itself, as long as the fork is clearly labelled as
> such to avoid confusion, is not something to concern anyone.
>
> The 'problem' arises when a subset of vendors actually decide to follow
> an alternative spec instead of the W3C one - in other words, it is
> divergence of implementations which is the issue. But history tells us
> that attempts to enforce spec compliance legally, by companies who have
> recourse to law far more readily than the W3C, have been doomed to
> misery and failure - not just for them, but for their technology. As
> Tantek points out[1], the effect of the W3C taking such action is highly
> unlikely to be positive for the Web.
>
> So Mozilla wishes to propose the use of the Creative Commons CC0
> License[2] for the HTML5 spec. This licence is a well-understood
> lawyer-checked internationalized licence from a respected player in the
> licensing space. Its terms and intent are completely clear, and do not
> suffer from the problem of being interpreted different ways by different
> people. And, examining the 11 use cases presented[0], by virtue of
> imposing no restrictions whatsoever we believe this licence meets all of
> them.
>
> (If the W3C strongly wishes to have extra reassurance that their name
> will not be wrongly associated with derivative works, then perhaps an
> addendum could be considered to remind users of what trademark law
> forbids.)
>
> The W3C's authority over HTML5 is due to its benevolent stewardship of
> the specification and to the commitment of the vendors concerned to work
> together under its aegis. We do not think that this authority requires
> or benefits from attempts to reinforce it with legal restrictions which,
> if actually enforced, would be a negative rather than positive thing for
> the web.
>
> Gerv
>
> [0] http://www.w3.org/2011/03/html-license-options.html#usecases
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2011Apr/0000.html
> [2] http://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/

Received on Wednesday, 27 April 2011 16:29:28 UTC