License for the pose standard

[newres]

I was wondering what the license is for the proposed syntax/specification of pose, as I could not find any mention of it on the website or in the repo.

[wallymathieu]

That's a good question. Are other specifications of s-expressions licensed? Or are the complete body of work under a license? I'm unsure if you could license the s-expression syntax.

[johnwcowan]

Are other specifications of s-expressions licensed?

Generally as part of a language standard. When ISO and ANSI don't get their paws on such standards, they generally have MIT or BSD-ish licenses.

[lassik]

@johnwcowan knows more about this, but AFAIK:

• No one can copyright a syntax. (Presumably someone could patent a syntax, software patents being as nuts as they are.)

• Making a new implementation of an existing syntax by reverse engineering should be legal almost everywhere. In the US, see Sega v. Accolade.

• Specification documents explaining a syntax are copyrighted. Each document should say what its license is.

• If you implement a syntax by reading a document, the document's copyright doesn't apply to the code you write.