Re: Special W3C Test license for publishing Test Materials

Hi Alex,

At 06:29 PM 7/29/02 -0600, Alex Rousskov wrote:
>[...]
>         "N Weeks on the QA mailing lists" summary mentions "Special
>W3C Test license" issue and quotes an e-mail by Kirill Gavrylyuk
>arguing that a special license should be created because test
>materials differ sufficiently from general-purpose W3C software[1].

In fact, a proposed license was presented and discussed briefly at the 
Montreal (14 June) face-to-face.  It is on the action item list to post a 
version for WG discussion, and integration with Operational 
Guidelines.  Stay tuned for that discussion.


>I would like to suggest that when/if this special license is prepared,
>it is tuned to accommodate 3rd-party test materials that are developed
>by commercial organizations. For example, my company would like to
>make our HTTP/1.1 compliance test suite available to/through W3C.
>However, the current W3C software license would make that difficult.
>While there is really no significant gain from allowing suite users to
>"copy, modify, and distribute" the suite, the current
>one-size-fits-all license requires that.

QA issue #49 [1], which was previously closed in March, was re-opened as a 
result of Montreal proposal.  I have linked in your suggestion, for when we 
revisit the issue.


>I understand that most current suites are developed by organizations
>that do not pay bills by selling their testing software (e.g., NIST).
>However, it would be great if W3C could accommodate companies that are
>willing to share their tools as long as that does not run them out of
>business. If nothing else, it would help to make W3C test collection
>diverse and complete.

This relates to a closed issue [2] which considered whether W3C should 
endorse or take positions on test suites.  The resolution was "no".  But QA 
is interested to apply assessment tools (such as future "Test Guidelines") 
and publish the results without further taking any position on 
goodness/badness.  The resolution was that such external suites would be 
linked from TheMatrix as long as the owners did not object to linking of 
such results along with the test suites.

Thanks,
-Lofton.

[1] http://www.w3.org/QA/WG/qawg-issues-html#x49
[2] http://www.w3.org/QA/WG/qawg-issues-html#x44



>IMO, the special license should address the needs specific to test
>suites authors and users without enforcing irrelevant policies.
>
>Thank you,
>
>Alex.
>
>[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2002Jun/0014.html

Received on Tuesday, 30 July 2002 15:34:13 UTC