Licensing and "use" of test cases

At [1], Joseph Reagle responded to [2] from Kirill.
KG> 2. Scope of use.
KG> ...We are happy to donate
KG> test cases for free to be used for the purpose they were created.
KG> Hence the desire to control the scope of use. Why would we donate
KG> them for free to be used for anything else but testing?...

JR>I can understand this and accept that some organizations may wish
JR>to limit the use of their contribution by others -- other than the
JR>W3C for that specific activity.  Though, note that the Document
JR>License does not govern "use" or limit its scope. It prevents
JR>derivation/adaptation....

I would like to protect the use of test cases as examples. In XSLT, for
example, some of my test cases illustrate useful techniques for
stylesheet writers. Thus, the person being inspired by the example is
going to either "adapt" the test (but not use it as a test) or "learn
the technique" exemplified by the test. If we say that they are doing
the latter, it appears that there is no license violation.

(The fact that they are test cases makes them better examples, because
they have normative power. Oops, there goes the "normative examples"
discussion again. It also raises the question of when and how examples
given in the spec can be converted into test cases.)
.................David Marston

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[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Feb/0127.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2003Feb/0121.html

Received on Thursday, 27 February 2003 13:40:38 UTC