[Esip-documentation] Question on licensing of "Attribute Convention for Data Discovery 1.3" wiki page content

[Martin Desruisseaux]

Le 25/05/2018 à 20:15, Bob Simons - NOAA Federal a écrit :

> 1) "Is ESIP fine with an Apache licensed implementation of the ACDD
> specification?"
>
> I love the Apache license, but perhaps not in this case. It opens up
> the possibility of others making changes (e.g., changing the attribute
> names or changing the definitions), which (I think) we don't want. But
> I hope the current license isn't an impediment (see below).

Yes, I agree that doing open standards is not the same than doing open
source software. Both the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and Free Software
Foundation Europe (FSFE) are now providing
definitions for "Open Standards" [1][2]. Their criteria do not include
modifying standards in uncontrolled way. But given that "Open Standards"
seems to still an emerging concept (I'm not yet aware of a well-known
license designed for them) and that the Apache Software Foundation has
not yet decided how to incorporate such open standards, I would
understand if it is considered premature to allow distribution of ACDD
definitions under Apache license.

[1] https://opensource.org/osr
[2] http://fsfe.org/activities/os/def.html


> 2) "How much of the documentation can be copied to assist with the
> implementation?"
>
> I personally don't interpret SIS's (or anyone's) references to ACDD
> and quotations from ACDD as constituting a copy of ACDD (which you are
> then distributing) or a derivative work (since you aren't making a new
> Attribute Convention derived from ACDD). So I think/hope that your
> references and quotations don't trigger the Copy-Left aspects of the
> GFDL license. I (and I hope everyone in the Documentation Cluster) am
> happy that you are following ACDD's conventions, including quotes from
> ACDD, and attributing the quotes to ACDD. I personally prefer that you
> include the entire description of an attribute (since it is more
> accurate and complete) rather than just the first sentence.

Yes I would prefer to include the entire quote too, but did not presumed
that I was allowed to for now.


> I think that the GFDL is a policy that ESIP applied to its Wiki, not a
> license that the Documentation Cluster consciously applied to ACDD.
> But it appears that ACDD, since it is published on the ESIP Wiki,
> falls under GFDL. Again, I think/hope that your references and
> quotations don't trigger the Copy-Left aspects of the GFDL license.
>
Ideally (I realize that it may not happen in short term), I think it
would be nice to have a formal Open Standard license designed among the
lines of OSI / FSFE criteria, and have the Apache Software Foundation
formally accepting this license in their software. But I guess that for
better chances of success, such effort would need involvement from
governments / FSF / Apache or other bodies, why may take a long time.

    Many thanks and best regards,

        Martin


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