Re: licensing of XMPP specifications
On Tue, Jan 08, 2008 at 11:53:20AM -0700, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> The membership and Board of Directors of the XSF have discussed this
> issue and we have consensus that we would like to change the
> licensing so that it is Debian-friendly (and, more broadly,
> freedom-friendly).
Thank you for the work you have put in on seeking to achieve this. I'm
sure I'm not the only one who greatly appreciates the commitment to
software freedom this represents. (Some people would have stalked off
by now, shouting "fundamentalists!" back over their shoulder...)
> Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
> obtaining a copy of this specification (the "Specification"), to
> make use of the Specification without restriction, including without
> limitation the rights to implement the Specification in a software
> program, deploy the Specification in a network service, and copy,
> modify, merge, publish, translate, distribute, sublicense, or sell
> copies of the Specification, and to permit persons to whom the
> Specification is furnished to do so, subject to the condition that
> the foregoing copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
> included in all copies or substantial portions of the Specification.
> Unless separate permission is granted, modified works that are
> redistributed shall not contain misleading information regarding the
> authors, title, number, or publisher of the Specification, and shall
> not claim endorsement of the modified works by the authors, any
> organization or project to which the authors belong, or the XMPP
> Standards Foundation.
I can't see any problem with any of that. The final section ("Unless
separate permission is granted...") is a form of "moral rights" or
protection against "passing off" rather than imposing any copyright
restrictions.
> IPR Conformance
>
> This XMPP Extension Protocol has been contributed in full conformance with
> the XSF's Intellectual Property Rights Policy (a copy of which may be found
> at <http://www.xmpp.org/extensions/ipr-policy.shtml> or obtained by writing
> to XSF, P.O. Box 1641, Denver, CO 80201 USA).
I'm assuming this is a statement of fact provided for information,
rather than imposing any requirement on licensees to comply with that
policy. So on that basis, that paragraph is fine.
Though (as an aside) it seems to me that the protocol has _not_ been
contributed in full conformance given the provisions of para 4 of the
policy, but I'm assuming the board is empowered to waive that
requirement.
> Warranty
>
> This Specification is provided "as is", without warranty of any
> kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the
> warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and
> noninfringement. In no event shall the authors or copyright holders
> be liable for any claim, damages, or other liability, whether in an
> action of contract, tort, or otherwise, arising from, out of, or in
> connection with the Specification or the implementation, deployment,
> or other use of the Specification.
Again, no problem there, is all pretty standard stuff.
John
(TINLA, TINASOTODP)
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