Re: [office-comment] Schema copyright

[Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@gmail.com>]

Dear all

I believe Alex is correct here.  Murata-san I don't think it makes any difference whether there is an explicit copyright claim on the schema or not.  The assumption of copyright ownership is implicit unless there is an explicit statement placing the document into the public domain.  (IMHO this is also an example of archaeic thinking but that is another matter).

But the point is not the copyright claim in this case, it is the licence which is granted for its distribution and use.   When users download the standard text and schema from OASIS public document repository they find in the front matter of the standard (page 3) both a copyright statement as well as a comprehensive licence text which confirms the liberal terms referred to by Rob.  But on the schema there is no such text, no click-through licence, just the copyright statement: Copyright © 2002-2009 OASIS Open.  I agree that this might create uncertainty.

A schema is a slightly different animal to the text standard.  It is expected to be distributed widely together with program code so I agree that it needs an explicit granting of rights.  Particulalrly if the default licence of the ISO26300 version will be the ITTF terms.

I am not entirely sure if BSD like terms are absolutely appropriate but perhaps it is the best approximation for what we want.  The problem with a standard schema is that, unlike free software source code, you don't really want it to be freely modified.  To take an extreme example, I should not be able to replace the entire content of the schema with something different and still distribute it as the odf schema.

Perhaps what is required is something like the restrictions of the historic apache 1.0 licence (http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-1.0) whereby I should be absolutely free to distribute the schema unmodified, but if I make modifications I must remove all references to ODF, OASIS, SUN, ISO, ITTF or what have you.

But as Rob says this is an issue which the TC doesn't have jurisdiction over.  But perhaps if we flag the issue we might see that it gets attention.  I certainly don't want to end up downloading the schema under ITTF draconian terms.

Regards
Bob

2009/10/8 Alex Brown <alexb@griffinbrown.co.uk>

Dear all,

 

The problem is not the copyright (which is joint in the case of IS 26300 I believe) but the license under which users may use the IS 26300 schema.

 

When a user downloads a Standard free-of-charge from ITTF's "Publicly available standards" site (http://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/index.html) they have to agree to a licence which is quite restrictive. In particular, it states “[u]nder no circumstances may the electronic file you are licensing be copied, transferred, or placed on a network of any sort without the authorization of the copyright owner” – which is clearly inappropriate for schema use (as well as being prehistoric in its thinking – but that’s another issue).

 

To circumvent this, ISO have said any electronic attachments need to carry a license which derogates from the ITTF terms. They have proposed something BSD-like.

 

The UK is, I understand, raising this issue at the up-coming JTC 1 Plenary in Israel – a good outcome will be that ITTF monitors incoming texts and ensures these kinds of licensing issues are sorted out in the publishing process.

 

However, to be safe it would probably be wise for OASIS to hard-code the license they want into the comments at the head of all the ODF schemas so that they do not inherit the blanket restrictions ITTF impose on PAS-transposed text.

 

- Alex.

 

> -----Original Message-----

> From: MURATA Makoto (FAMILY Given) [mailto:eb2m-mrt@asahi-net.or.jp]

> Sent: 08 October 2009 05:31

> To: office-comment@lists.oasis-open.org

> Subject: Re: [office-comment] Schema copyright

>

> Rob,

>

> I should have been clearer.  The schema in DSDL Part 7 has copyright

> information.  I am suggesting this copyright information instead of the

> current copyright statement.

>

> I have assumed that you would like open source implementors to ship their

> source code together with the ODF schemas (with some modifications).

> I believe that the current copyright statement blocks such use.

>

> Cheers,

> Makoto

>

> --

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