RE: [office-comment] Schema copyright

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

"Alex Brown" <alexb@griffinbrown.co.uk> wrote on 10/08/2009 05:23:51 AM:

> 
> Perhaps one way to move forward would be to raise a defect report
> against IS 26300 complaining about the schema licensing? This could be
> tabled for the upcoming WG6 Paris meeting. Then the formal process would
> have to grind through to some solution - it's going to take lawyers,
> rather than us techies, to sort it out so I suspect the impetus of a
> formal process is needed to get action.
> 

However, IS 26300 does not include a standalone schema file.  It only has 
blocks of schema fragments inline in the specification, along with 
instructions on how the reader may assemble it to form a RNG file. We have 
no electronic annex, so you never download an electronic schema file from 
ISO for ODF.   So any schema created from the specification would be a 
derived work of the ODF Standard, and derived rights are are already 
covered under the OASIS Notice. 
 
The question you need to ask is first: Is the OASIS licence sufficient to 
give the kind of derived rights an application would require to extract 
and use the schema file?  The OASIS Notice says: "...derivative works that 
comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be 
prepared, copied, published, and distributed, in whole or in part, without 
restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this 
section are included on all such copies and derivative works."

IMHO using a schema file would fit under the category of assisting in 
implementation of the standard.

Second, if you believe that the ISO licence takes away rights you have 
from the OASIS licence then you need to bring this up with ITTF.  I don't 
see anything that we on the ODF TC can do to help you there.  Remember, 
even if we took the copyright declaration out of the inline schema 
fragment, the copyright still exists.  So no text change on the ODF side 
can help you if ISO is just going to slap a closed licence on it upon 
publication.

Note however that in ODF 1.2 we do intend to publish the schema file 
standalone, as an electronic file.  In that case we'll take a look to see 
if the entire Notice can go into the RNG file itself as a comment.

-Rob