Re: W3C specs reformatted

* Janet Daly wrote:
>Bjoern, since this topic is related to W3C's policies and not to the 
>structure of the site, I am moving this thread to site-policy. For some 
>reason, the requestor double posted, and now the thread is more 
>challenging to track. Please, if you have further questions, drop the cc 
>to site-comments, and we'll keep it on the public site-policy list.

Fine with me, except that site-policy is not public but rather team-only
so I am moving this to www-archive.

>> I would like to ensure that I fully understand W3C's policies in this
>> regard, especially since I distribute works under the terms of the IPR
>> FAQ (though with respect to section 5.6 rather than section 5.9). I
>> would also like to avoid giving people false advise in a discussion on
>> such matters.

>How is it that you redistribute our works?

Section 5.6 covers translations, so, I've published some translations.

>W3C reserves the right to evaluate requests. Nothing in the FAQ, nor in 
>the document license, says that all modifications will be granted based 
>only on the minimum requirements listed in the FAQ.

I am afraid this is very unclear from the IPR FAQ. The only place where
the document states that one is required to request and get explicit
permission is section 5.6 for documents that are not Technical Reports.
My understanding is that W3C gives automatic permission to translate
Technical Reports and that all you have to do for a translation is what
the IPR FAQ requires to do. Yet there is no statement that explicit
permission is not required, that's only something you can infer from it,
but inferring things from legal documents is dangerous.

Section 5.8 is very similar to section 5.6, in fact, it explicitly
states annotated specifications are "covered by a policy much like the
translation policy". I cannot tell from the document whether W3C gives
automatic permission for such documents (too). I would infer W3C does.

Section 5.9 is again very similar to the preceding sections, the
requirements are naturally a bit different, but there is nothing that
suggests substantive difference from the other sections. Given the vague
language of the preceding sections it seems safe to infer that W3C gives
automatic permission for such documents. Now it seems that is a false
assumption.

Given the rules for translations, the requirements in each of the three
sections do not at all appear to be minimum requirements but rather
exclusive. So, if there are differences between these sections, may I
suggest that these are explicitly mentioned? <strong>You are not
required to ask for specific permission</strong> and <strong>You must
ask for specific permission</strong> where applicable would certainly
be helpful here. Specifically for translations in fact, quite a number
of people write to w3c-translators asking for permission to translate
and rarely get a response, so clearer language would be very welcome.

Especially now that I am no longer sure whether W3C really gives
automatic permission for translations, but for that I can at least
cite a number of comments to this effect from W3C staff...

Thanks again!

Received on Thursday, 3 June 2004 18:06:21 UTC