- From: Joseph Reagle <reagle@w3.org>
- Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2003 13:51:22 -0400
- To: Terje Bless <link@pobox.com>
- Cc: W3C Validator <www-validator@w3.org>
Terje, Your understanding of the usage validator icons corresponds to the W3C's Trademark and Service Mark license: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2002/trademark-license-20021231 However, for a validator to remain meaningful, and for our registered trademark to continue to be of value, when we are aware of those who are violating the marks/icons we have the ability, and to some extent a responsibility, to identify and attempt to resolve the problem. Consequently, we should always try to be as clear as possible about the usage of our marks/icons, and to maintain the tools available to us so as to ensure they continue to be useful mechanisms for encouraging conformance to W3C Recommendations. On Friday 04 July 2003 20:32, Terje Bless wrote: > Of course, the fact that the TikiWiki home page is not valid markup and > still displays the assertion "Valid XHTML 1.0" does detract quite a bit > from their credibility, but it's still just a matter of them lying to > their users and not something that actually implicates the W3C (despite > the appearance of the W3C logo on the page). > > We've historically taken the position here that the badges are merely a > convenience provided for authors to assert that they are in compliance > with a given standard. For W3C standards (Recommendations) the icons > contain the W3C logo, and for non-W3C standards they contain a different > logo (e.g. the Netscape or Sun logos). i.e. the logos do not reflect an > assertion that the W3C, as such, has pronounced the page in question to > be valid, only that the author of the page asserts it is valid and that > the standard to which it is valid happened to be produced by the W3C. > > The main reason for that reasoning is that to allow more would put the > W3C in the uncomfortable slippery slope towards actually providing a > certification programme or service. And while that would certainly be a > worthwhile thing to do, it would be very expensive and hard to administer > (not the least because of the inherent legal pitfalls in such a service). -- Joseph Reagle Jr. http://www.w3.org/People/Reagle/
Received on Monday, 7 July 2003 13:51:24 UTC