Re: location of UnicodeData.txt

[Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>]

tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) wrote:
> Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl> writes:
> 
> > There's another limitation in this clause, though: "... and used in
> > documentation or programs".  This would preclude using the files as
> > part of a work of art, for example.  Is that too limiting for the DFSG?
> 
> Documentation of *anything*, however, not just programs, so that
> leaves it completely open, and thus is no obstacle.

Art is not necessarily documentation.  If someone decides to take
UnicodeData.txt and embed it into a sidewalk in Hollywood, then I
don't think any reasonable person would call it documentation or a
program.

It seems like a polite letter to the appropriate standards body would
be in order here.  The current license is close enough to what is
needed that there are really only minor modifications needed.  The
license needs to explicitly allow distribution of modified versions
(although it may require a prominent notice stating that it is not the
"real" standard"), and it needs to allow use for any purpose.  If
someone sends a polite letter, we might very well get a letter back
saying "Of course you can do that".

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry@ucsd.edu