Re: org/w3c/dom duplicates in lib-dom-java and lib-openxml-java,libxerces-java!
andrew@pimlott.ne.mediaone.net (Andrew Pimlott) writes:
> I was curious about this, and I would like to ask if there is any
> consensus on how this affects free software. For example, the
> copyright notice at
> http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Core-20001113/copyright-notice.html
> says
>
> Consequently, modified versions of the DOM bindings must
> document that they do not conform to the W3C standard; in the
> case of the IDL definitions, the pragma prefix can no longer be
> 'w3c.org'; in the case of the Java Language binding, the package
> names can no longer be in the 'org.w3c' package.
>
> While this does allow modification of the software, it effectively
> says that when you modify it, you must break the API. This seems
> like an onerous requirement.
Modifying it will break the API-- perhaps I'm misreading it, but it seems
to me that by "DOM bindings" they are talking about the API. So if you
do change it, you're not conforming to the published API. But they don't
seem to prevent you from changing it (IANAL, and alla that)
It doesn't seem any different than the Artistic License to me-- you can
do whatever you want to to it, you just can't call it 'org.w3c.foo' if
you break the API. You can still publish it as 'org.bobsnamespce.foo' if
you want to. Most likely, you should ask this on debian-legal.
> Does anyone have any thoughts? Can anyone make a good case for why
> the DOM classes are still free software?
I didn't see you making a good case that they weren't. That's not a
slam; I just didn't see anything in your mail or the URL you referenced
that would (to me) indicate it's not free software.
-=Eric
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