Re: Test Suite License Grant II

On Fri, 2008-04-25 at 22:03 +0000, fantasai wrote:

Hi Fantasai,

I have only a couple of comments, and not ones that address your
main requests.

> You've updated the license grant form under the old URL.
>    http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/1/testgrants2-200409/?login
> I hope you're keeping track of which contributors filled out the previous
> version vs. this version.

Submitting the form sends an email which is archived, so we have a dated
record of contributions. So mostly we need to keep track of changes to 
the form.

> I have some comments:
> 
>    # The Contributor hereby grants to the W3C, a perpetual, non-exclusive,
>    # royalty-free, world-wide right and license under any Contributor
>    # copyrights in this contribution to copy, publish, use, modify, and
>    # to distribute the contribution under a BSD License or more restrictive,
>    # as well as a right and license of the same scope to any derivative
>    # works prepared by the W3C and based on, or incorporating all or part
>    # of the contribution.
> 
> "to copy, publish, use, modify, and to distribute" is not parallel construction.
> It's not clear what the intent is. Did you mean
>    "to copy, publish, use, and modify the contribution and to distribute the
>    contribution under a BSD License"
> or
>    "to copy, publish, use, modify, and distribute the contribution under a
>    BSD License"
> ? The latter restricts W3C's copy/publish/use/modify rights to the terms
> of the BSD License.
> 
> "or more restrictive" seems to be unfinished. Perhaps you meant "a more
> restrictive license". Is it clear, legally, what "a more restrictive license"
> means?
> 
>    # The Contributor further agrees that any derivative works of this
>    # contribution prepared by the W3C shall be solely owned by the W3C.
> 
> This sentence has always bothered me. This sentence basically says that
> if W3C modifies a contributor's test suite, the W3C owns the new version
> in its entirety -- it basically strips away the contributor's copyright
> ownership. It would make more sense, and be more in line with the previous
> sentence, if it says that the changes W3C makes are owned by W3C. (Or if
> it were removed entirely.)
> 
> Last thing, it would be nice if there was an optional checkbox that allowed
> contributors to give W3C joint copyright ownership of the test, similar to
> the way the Membership agreement does. Many contributors would be happy to
> check off that box, but wouldn't bother to take that extra step if it
> required emailing W3C and discussing it with Ian Jacobs, which is the
> current process.

+1 to a checkbox.

 _ Ian

> ~fantasai
> 
-- 
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/
Tel:                     +1 718 260-9447

Received on Monday, 28 April 2008 19:01:05 UTC