Re: Early XSLT's

"Arnold, Curt" wrote:
> I've been working under an assumption of good faith and have been
> making stuff available with no explicit copyright or terms of use.
> However, I'm starting to get a little uncomfortable with my personal
> exposure by doing this.  By asserting a copyright and GPL, I at
> least cover myself by providing a standard liability disclaimer.

The W3C DOM Test Suites cannot work under the GPL license or take the
risk to not be able to use the result of the work being done in the
DOM Test Suites Mailing List. You have clearly the right to hold the
copyright on your work but, by not giving the rights to the W3C to
reuse it, we are currently stopped. NIST developed the DOM Level 1
Test Suite and allowed the W3C to reuse it. The W3C DOM Working Group
will also develop a (minimal) DOM Level 3 Test Suite and will give its
work to the DOM Test Suites participants. We join our effort publicly
to let the Web community contribute to the Test Suites for DOM Level
1, 2, and 3, and also to provide clear independence between the DOM
Working Group and the development of the test suites.

I, as DOM Activity Lead for the W3C, cannot rely the DOM Test Suites
for DOM Level 1, 2 and 3 on the GNU Public License. Unless we find a
way to put them under the W3C Software Copyright License, we won't be
able to use the current proposed framework for the W3C DOM Conformance
Test Suites. The materials provided through the W3C must be available
to the Web community at large. We cannot continue to go down a path
that will lead to personal copyrighting.

I, as Chair of the W3C Document Object Model Working Group, cannot
rely on an hypothetical framework from the DOM Test Suites
participants. The DOM Level 3 specifications will not move to Last
Call until the framework is ready and under the W3C Software Copyright
License. The sooner it will be, the better it will be for our work.

> I'm still free to donate the code to the W3C, when and if desired,
> to be released under an appropriate license.

During the face-to-face meeting (two days ago) and following your
comments, the DOM Working Group made the decision to move back from
the W3C Document License to the W3C Software License regarding the W3C
DOM Conformance Test Suites. The only restrictions will be to change
the package name of the Java sources (in other words, if you reuse the
Java sources, you will need to move out of the org.w3c), not use the
terms "W3C DOM Conformance Test Suites" to reference your derivative
work, and not claim any conformance with the W3C DOM Conformance Test
Suites.

Unless the current situation regarding the framework is clarified before
the 20th of June 2001, the W3C (and NIST) will have to reconsider the
current DOM Test Suites work, including moving the development out of
the public mailing list to avoid future copyright issues.

> Whether code generation templates are part of the test suite or part
> of a specific harness implementation is questionable.

The W3C DOM Conformance Test Suites for DOM Level 1, 2, and 3 will be
the Java and ECMAScript sources and the harness shipped with them, not
the XML framework or the XML descriptions of the tests who are part of
the DOM Test Suites work. This represents the distinction between the
tests endorsed by the W3C and the work done in the DOM Test Suites.

Regarding the framework or the XML descriptions, they also need to be
under the W3C Software Copyright license without any further
restriction. Even if you are the major contributor for the XSLs
generating the XML Schemas, other participants of the DOM Test Suites
are reviewing and providing feedbacks on them.

> I should be able to make the code JUnit independent, however test
> classes will require that the base class, DOMTestCase, provide
> JUnit-like functions such as assertTrue, assertFalse, etc in
> addition to implementing utility functions like load,
> implementation, wait, etc.

Since the XML Framework and XML tests will be under the W3C Software
Copyright license, you will be able to modify and provide an
independent work from the results of the DOM Test Suites. Also, since we
recognize your rights to hold the copyright on your work, you will be
totally free to do whatever you want with your work. But we need your
approval of the following paragraph:

You grant to the W3C, a perpetual, nonexclusive, royalty-free,
world-wide right and license under any copyrights in this contribution
to copy, publish and distribute the contribution, 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. You further agree that any derivative works of
this contribution prepared by the W3C shall be solely owned by the
W3C.

Any derivative work by the W3C from the submitted material may be done
without further notice to the submitter. The DOM Test Suite mailing
list will be aware of all changes in any case.

I hope that this message clarifies the intent of the W3C regarding the
DOM Test Suites work. If you need more clarifications, please let me
know. I do believe that it is still important to develop the DOM Test
Suites in coordination with the users and developers. The new proposal
for the W3C copyrights is reasonnable and the DOM Test Suite Process
Document will be changed this next Wednesday to reflect our current
intent.

Thank you for your participation and help to our effort,

Philippe
-- 
Philippe Le Hegaret - http://www.w3.org/People/LeHegaret/
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), DOM Activity Lead

Received on Friday, 15 June 2001 14:53:51 UTC