- From: Kirill Gavrylyuk <kirillg@microsoft.com>
- Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2003 18:00:35 -0800
- To: <reagle@w3.org>
- Cc: <www-qa-wg@w3.org>, "Karin Rivard" <rivard@MIT.EDU>, "Marija V. Jankovich" <marija@MIT.EDU>, "Philippe Le Hegaret" <plh@w3.org>
Hi Joseph, Sorry for delay with an answer. Here are some of the reasons why Microsoft cannot use materials published under the W3C Software License and cannot contribute materials to be published under the W3C Software License. Hope this clarifies our position. We really hope that the W3C would be able to put the process in place that would resolve these remaining issues blocking vendors like Microsoft to contribute to test suites for certain standards where Document License is not applicable. An essence of the problem that using the W3C Software license for publishing Test Materials causes for Microsoft: Microsoft contributes test materials for standards-related test development efforts under licenses that provide certain warranties and limitations of the scope. Microsoft uses only test materials published under licenses with similar warranties/limitations of the scope. The W3C Software License does not provide such warranties or any limitations of the scope, which is incompatible with the license Microsoft uses and makes it impossible for Microsoft to use the materials published under the W3C Software License. Details/Rationale: 1) Microsoft recommends its employees to not use the Test Materials published under the W3C Software License. As a general policy Microsoft does not use code produced without certain warranties or reps that might impact our use of the code. The W3C Software License does not provide warranties or reps against copyright infringement, trade secret misappropriation, or imposition of further obligations relating to the use of the Test Materials. 2) Microsoft cannot contribute materials to be published under the W3C Software License. Currently we request the use of the W3C Document License for publishing our submissions, but in the future it may not be applicable for some standards where limited modifications of the materials are required. When Microsoft produces test materials, it intends them to be used for a particular purpose, but the W3C Software license allows the materials licensed under it to be modified in any manner inconsistent with Microsoft's intent. Because of this and the lack of warranties provided by the W3C Software License mentioned in the item 1), we simply cannot accurately evaluate the risks of contributing the test Materials to a W3C test suite published under the W3C Software License. And the benefits for Microsoft of contributing the test Materials to such a test suite would be minimal since Microsoft would not be able to use such a test suite because of the item 1). Thanks -----Original Message----- From: Joseph Reagle [mailto:reagle@w3.org] Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2002 11:42 AM To: Kirill Gavrylyuk Cc: www-qa-wg@w3.org; Karin Rivard; Marija V. Jankovich; Philippe Le Hegaret Subject: Re: proposed Test Materials license On Thursday 14 November 2002 01:15 am, Kirill Gavrylyuk wrote: > 1. When the Document License does not work for publishing test > Materials? An example would be any downloadable test materials package > that would require modification (even just platform/implementation > adjustments) in order to be used for a product testing. > An existing example is a W3C DOM test suite, which is published > under the modified W3C Software License and cannot be published under > Document License. Yes, the DOM Test Suite has been successfully built and distributed under the W3C Software License -- as has the XML Test Suite. If necessary, the ability to alter the test suite (e.g., build language specific bindings) is a reason to choose the Software License, but folks might want to permit maximum flexibility (e.g., the XML Test Suite are just instances and don't require any modifications for use I don't think.) > 2. Why the Software License does not work for Test Materials? Using GPL > compatible licenses like the W3C Software License for test materials > without restricting the scope of use > - limits availability of the published test materials for certain > vendors > - prevents certain potential contributors from submitting test > materials to the W3C test suite. This is what I'm trying to understand. How does it limit availability and prevent contributions?
Received on Thursday, 9 January 2003 21:00:50 UTC