Hi --
I've been looking at shipping the DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) XML schema, but noticed a copyright notice on the XML catalog file at http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.2/os/dtd1.2/catalog-dita.xml that reads:
<!-- (C) Copyright OASIS Open 2005, 2009. --> <!-- (C) Copyright IBM Corporation 2001, 2004. --> <!-- All Rights Reserved. -->
which seems to preclude redistribution
When I asked the DITA technical committee about this, the chair directed me to the notices here: http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.2/os/spec/DITA1.2-spec.html which state in part:
"This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and 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. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, including by removing the copyright notice or references to OASIS, except as needed for the purpose of developing any document or deliverable produced by an OASIS Technical Committee (in which case the rules applicable to copyrights, as set forth in the OASIS IPR Policy, must be followed) or as required to translate it into languages other than English."
and asked me to include that notice with any distribution of DITA.
Is this OK to ship? Is this license properly described as "Copyright Only"?
Cheers Rudi
On 01/12/2014 10:45 PM, Ruediger Landmann wrote:
Hi --
I've been looking at shipping the DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) XML schema, but noticed a copyright notice on the XML catalog file at http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.2/os/dtd1.2/catalog-dita.xml that reads:
<!-- (C) Copyright OASIS Open 2005, 2009. -->
<!-- (C) Copyright IBM Corporation 2001, 2004. -->
<!-- All Rights Reserved. -->
which seems to preclude redistribution
When I asked the DITA technical committee about this, the chair directed me to the notices here: http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.2/os/spec/DITA1.2-spec.html which state in part:
"This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and 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. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, including by removing the copyright notice or references to OASIS, except as needed for the purpose of developing any document or deliverable produced by an OASIS Technical Committee (in which case the rules applicable to copyrights, as set forth in the OASIS IPR Policy, must be followed) or as required to translate it into languages other than English."
and asked me to include that notice with any distribution of DITA.
Is this OK to ship? Is this license properly described as "Copyright Only"?
Wow. This is a... fun one. The OASIS spec license, which seems to apply to the catalog-dita.xml is clearly non-free, because it does not permit unrestricted modification (the wording around "derivative works" might have permitted this, except that it is limited to "derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation", which is A) painfully narrow B) difficult to determine compliance and C) a restriction on modification in either case.
That said, this is on an XML file. If we consider an XML file to be content (rather than code), then the OASIS spec license (barely) meets the Content licensing requirements. If we consider it to be code, it definitely is not kosher for Fedora.
XML as a format straddles the line between code and content. It can be used to make a phone book (content) or it can be used to structure code. In this case, it is being used as a DTD for documents.
My gut instinct here is that this is code, not content (on the grounds that this file is effectively "compiled" into other documents, and thus, not okay for Fedora. That said, if FESCo disagrees with me, and declares this case to be content, it would be acceptable (and I'd add a new entry for the OASIS spec license to the content list). Please let me know if you decide to ask FESCo (and they determine it is content), so that I can add it to the list if needed.
~tom
== ¸.·´¯`·.´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸><(((º> OSAS @ Red Hat University Outreach || Fedora Special Projects || Fedora Legal
On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 04:45:33PM -0500, Tom Callaway wrote:
On 01/12/2014 10:45 PM, Ruediger Landmann wrote:
Hi --
I've been looking at shipping the DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) XML schema, but noticed a copyright notice on the XML catalog file at http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.2/os/dtd1.2/catalog-dita.xml that reads:
<!-- (C) Copyright OASIS Open 2005, 2009. -->
<!-- (C) Copyright IBM Corporation 2001, 2004. -->
<!-- All Rights Reserved. -->
which seems to preclude redistribution
When I asked the DITA technical committee about this, the chair directed me to the notices here: http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.2/os/spec/DITA1.2-spec.html which state in part:
"This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and 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. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, including by removing the copyright notice or references to OASIS, except as needed for the purpose of developing any document or deliverable produced by an OASIS Technical Committee (in which case the rules applicable to copyrights, as set forth in the OASIS IPR Policy, must be followed) or as required to translate it into languages other than English."
and asked me to include that notice with any distribution of DITA.
Is this OK to ship? Is this license properly described as "Copyright Only"?
Wow. This is a... fun one. The OASIS spec license, which seems to apply to the catalog-dita.xml is clearly non-free, because it does not permit unrestricted modification (the wording around "derivative works" might have permitted this, except that it is limited to "derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation", which is A) painfully narrow B) difficult to determine compliance and C) a restriction on modification in either case.
That said, this is on an XML file. If we consider an XML file to be content (rather than code), then the OASIS spec license (barely) meets the Content licensing requirements. If we consider it to be code, it definitely is not kosher for Fedora.
XML as a format straddles the line between code and content. It can be used to make a phone book (content) or it can be used to structure code. In this case, it is being used as a DTD for documents.
My gut instinct here is that this is code, not content (on the grounds that this file is effectively "compiled" into other documents, and thus, not okay for Fedora. That said, if FESCo disagrees with me, and declares this case to be content, it would be acceptable (and I'd add a new entry for the OASIS spec license to the content list). Please let me know if you decide to ask FESCo (and they determine it is content), so that I can add it to the list if needed.
Would this affect any other DTDs Fedora is shipping? Many of them are used widely in our XML and HTML validation tools, so as a former docs guy this opinion caught my attention.
On 01/22/2014 09:00 AM, Paul W. Frields wrote:
Would this affect any other DTDs Fedora is shipping? Many of them are used widely in our XML and HTML validation tools, so as a former docs guy this opinion caught my attention.
Not AFAIK. The big one, of course, is DocBook, and that's very plainly freely licensed:
"Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute the DocBook XML DTD and its accompanying documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted in perpetuity, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph appear in all copies."
http://docbook.org/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd
Basically, it's up to each OASIS TC to decide how they want to license their stuff; and it's up to every would-be Fedora packager to check :)
Cheers Rudi
On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 11:26:13AM +1000, Ruediger Landmann wrote:
On 01/22/2014 09:00 AM, Paul W. Frields wrote:
Would this affect any other DTDs Fedora is shipping? Many of them are used widely in our XML and HTML validation tools, so as a former docs guy this opinion caught my attention.
Not AFAIK. The big one, of course, is DocBook, and that's very plainly freely licensed:
"Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute the DocBook XML DTD and its accompanying documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted in perpetuity, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph appear in all copies."
http://docbook.org/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd
Basically, it's up to each OASIS TC to decide how they want to license their stuff; and it's up to every would-be Fedora packager to check :)
Thanks Rudi.
On 01/22/2014 07:45 AM, Tom Callaway wrote:
My gut instinct here is that this is code, not content (on the grounds that this file is effectively "compiled" into other documents, and thus, not okay for Fedora. That said, if FESCo disagrees with me, and declares this case to be content, it would be acceptable (and I'd add a new entry for the OASIS spec license to the content list). Please let me know if you decide to ask FESCo (and they determine it is content), so that I can add it to the list if needed.
Thanks Tom; I'll take it back up with the DITA TC first and see if they are able and willing to license more unrestricted modification.
Cheers Rudi
-
Paul W. Frields -
Ruediger Landmann -
Tom Callaway