Please review CG Report requirements #587
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@csarven, once the reports have been reformatted, it would be great to register them in the W3C CG Report system by way of the "publish" button that appears on the CG's home page when you are (1) logged in and (2) chair of a CG. For more, see: Thanks! |
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Thanks @ianbjacobs ! Am/we're aware. Short response: Going forward, the CG will produce CG-DRAFT/FINAL reports as you recommend as well as per Solid CG charter. Longer response: The latest published versions (what you see published under solidproject.org/TR/ ) and the deliverables referred by the proposed Solid WG charter have been using the Solid Process (which is no longer applicable to the CG). This is only one part of the reason why Solid CG hasn't produced a CG-DRAFT/FINAL. Going forward, the CG will follow its CG charter (became effective 2023-09-01), which is aligned with W3C's processes and recommendations. To the best of Solid CG's and W3C contacts' ( @pchampin @rigow ) knowledge:
Happy to be corrected on anything above. And happy to hear any additional insights you can offer. Again, happy to produce CG-DRAFT/FINALs (in particular proposed deliverables of the WG charter) and follow up with the publication process. We will also follow-up with updating CG's Contributing Guide to reflect any remaining changes related to publication of documents/reports. Lastly, I understand the differences between what can be practised, required, or prohibited by W3C in a CG (and elsewhere) may be confusing to some or even many. I can only recommend that existing CG requirements, W3C Process, and other guides are updated to further help minimise these confusions for anyone, and to better communicate expectations. If you'd like me/us to follow-up on this with you / W3C Team in another thread/repository, happy to do so. |
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Hi @csarven,
That is also my understanding.
That is also my understanding (but not directly relevant to the current thread about CG Report requirements).
Here is what the Advisory Board wrote in 2016 [1] on that topic: "Strongly Recommended: Charters do not list specs as deliverables, and WGs do not publish FWPDs, until there is rough consensus across stakeholders that the spec solves a real problem, is likely to be implemented, and is likely to be used on the Web. This consensus could emerge from an incubation phase in WICG or another CG, or in a WG that has an established culture of taking and vetting suggestions from its public mailing list." [1] https://www.w3.org/Guide/standards-track/#criteria
Our FAQ [2] includes this: Q. Can I make it a condition of joining a Community or Business Group or publishing a Report that people must agree to licensing terms beyond the CLA/FSA? Is the expectation that people cannot join the Solid CG unless they agree to the terms and conditions of the charter?
We welcome suggestions on [email protected]. Thank you! |
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@ianbjacobs the list of draft reports I filled in on https://www.w3.org/community/solid/ during our meeting today was a copy of https://solidproject.org/TR/#work-items But since then I got a message from @VirginiaBalseiro saying this list is incorrect and not conforming to https://www.w3.org/community/reports/reqs/. I was also unaware that this had been an open issue since October. As we discussed there is an 'add' button but no 'remove' button. Can you please remove the list again? Sorry for the hassle! |
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I will PR a CG-DRAFT (and eventually FINAL) of the Solid Protocol based on ED. I have the CG-DRAFT ready but was waiting on the possible resolution of some of the items in the last milestone if the Group deemed them to be ready. There is no showstopper to have a CG-DRAFT of what we have, and I think we can go ahead with it. I can PR in the next week or so (keeping in mind travels). We (CG) can perhaps pick it up on 2024-05-08 ( @VirginiaBalseiro ). We can publish other Work Items as CG-DRAFT/FINALs once they're ready and agreed upon. |
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Hi all,
If these are indeed reports of the CG, then it is important that they adhere to the CG report requirements [1], including the copyright statement, use of logos, boilerplate text, etc. Let me know how I can help on this.
Regarding the link from the CG’s home page, I think we can leave them in place since the more important bit is that the spec styles be updated. (And I’m assuming the URLs will point at the updated drafts.)
Thank you,
Ian
[1] https://www.w3.org/community/reports/reqs/
[2] https://www.w3.org/community/solid/
… On Apr 25, 2024, at 9:57 AM, Sarven Capadisli ***@***.***> wrote:
I will PR a CG-DRAFT (and eventually FINAL) of the Solid Protocol based on ED. I have the CG-DRAFT ready but was waiting on the possible resolution of some of the items in the last milestone if the Group wanted them in there. There is no showstopper to have a CG-DRAFT of what we have, and we can go ahead with it. I can PR next in the week or so (keeping in mind travels). We (CG) can perhaps pick it up on 2024-05-08.
We can publish other Work Items as CG-DRAFT/FINALs once they're ready and agreed upon.
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@michielbdejong can you clarify what "our meeting" is referring to? |
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@ianbjacobs I think we already covered this earlier in the issue and elsewhere. Just for clarity for those not heavily involved in the CG or who need a summary: Our process prior to the Solid CG Charter didn't include publishing W3C CG Reports. The documents that are currently referenced from Solid Work Items are not "W3C CG Reports" as it stands but we're transitioning to it. We have documents with status along the lines of editors/unofficial drafts, living documents, notes, and lowercase technical reports - was never intended to be conflated with W3C Technical Reports, not hosted w3.org, not using W3C logo, not implying W3C endorsed, among other things to say the least.
Related:
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@VirginiaBalseiro, @michielbdejong and I were chatting about CGs in the context of another group. |
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@csarven, @VirginiaBalseiro, and @michielbdejong, If these documents are not (yet) CG Reports, please do not indicate that they were published by the Solid Community Group. Instead, please indicate which individuals drafted them. Because these documents are not CG deliverables, please remove mention of the CLA. (Indeed, you refer to the MIT license in the documents that I looked at.) In other words: these are either CG Reports published by the group under the CLA and consistent with the requirements for CG Reports, or they are some other kind of document that has no relationship to any W3C process or group. Regarding your questions above:
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Most Solid drafts had versioned snapshots published as "WD" and living documents available as "ED". Linking from the 0.x tagged immutable version (~WD) to the latest version on the main branch (~ED) might be slightly nuanced since the link would commonly be labeled Editor's Draft. Is there a recommended term that could be used in CG drafts to label that link? |
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I am still getting up to speed on the status and plans for these documents. But if a document is not yet a Draft (or Final) CG Report, it should not claim to be the product of the CG (and not use the CG styles, license, etc.). If a call would be useful, let's find time next week. |
That would be very useful, thank you! A number of us will be attending Solid Symposium next week and thus unavailable, but would you be able to join our weekly CG call on Wednesday May 8th at 14:00 UTC? |
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Yes I can join that call (please email me the call info). Thanks! |
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Quick status update: I have the CG-DRAFT ready but decided not to PR yet. Traveling today. I will do it this week in a calmer moment/space. More details will be in the PR that we can review. A quick FYI for now:
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Hi Virginia,
I am not having luck joining the call here;
https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/a810b828-7a85-47b8-8a6d-2359a491a7f7/20240508T140000/
Ian
… On Apr 26, 2024, at 10:21 AM, Virginia Balseiro ***@***.***> wrote:
If a call would be useful, let's find time next week.
That would be very useful, thank you! A number of us will be attending Solid Symposium next week and thus unavailable, but would you be able to join our weekly CG call on Wednesday May 8th at 14:00 UTC?
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You were an hour too early. It will start 20 min from now. |
What reason do you see for the 'ED' not to be a CG draft? I'm looking at and they both seem to use the 'CG-DRAFT` template; I also notice the Latest published version and Latest editor's draft terminology. I also noticed that the 'ED' has UNOFFICIAL watermarks. |
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Thanks again for including me in today's meeting. Here's a quick summary of my thoughts:
I am happy to continue to contribute to this discussion. Thanks! |
That might be begging the question =) The initial intention was to not have our Our As I see it, if "unofficial" CG-DRAFT serves as a draft for us along the lines of what we've intended at As mentioned earlier, CG-DRAFT doesn't have to be at Aside (speaking only based on my own understanding/observation): As it currently stands at W3C, there is no ED or UD for CGs. While some CGs use(d) ED/UD - possibly because of process and tooling confusion, as well as nothing particularly prohibiting their use - they are incorrect and need to change. As Ian also mentioned above, CGs are only expected use CG-DRAFT/FINAL and to not communicate other kinds of document types/statuses found at W3C (see also https://www.w3.org/standards/types/#x1-summary ) or imply association with W3C. So, I'd much prefer to have ED/protocol be an unofficial CG draft and remain that way rather than something else. The W3C |
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I don't think that UNOFFICIAL CG-DRAFT is defined somewhere. I just saw that some drafts have a UNOFFICIAL watermark used in their templates. Since many Solid drafts use bikeshed I would like to have clarity on which of the available templates should be used
I think all drafts should use CG-DRAFT, which seems to add the UNOFFICIAL DRAFT watermark, as seen here: https://solid.github.io/data-interoperability-panel/specification/ There is also UD, but it doesn't seem to be intended for CGs, as seen here: https://solid.github.io/data-interoperability-panel/primer/application.html Does anyone see a problem with using the CG-DRAFT template for all CG work items, whether it is the latest published version (tagged/timestamped release snapshot) or the latest editor's draft (auto-generated from the
As I understand the maturity levels working groups use, reaching CR signals that the draft is primarily stable and ready for implementation. Many people find it problematic to go that far without actual implementation experience. Solid takes a more agile approach and strives for continued implementation feedback; there is already an advanced test suite for various product classes. Having versioned releases allows better communication with developers and clarity on which draft and version are being implemented. For example https://communitysolidserver.github.io/CommunitySolidServer/latest/usage/notifications/ Another example where we initially failed to do that is https://solidproject.org/TR/oidc |
W3C Team / Ian can correct me but as per https://www.w3.org/standards/types/#x2-1-w3c-community-group-report-or-w3c-business-group-report and https://www.w3.org/community/reports/reqs/ and irrespective to the tooling or environment that's used to create the report, the report needs to apply the CG-DRAFT template, styles, and include certain content (e.g., copyright, SotD). The W3C stylesheet for CG-DRAFT by default applies the unofficial watermark, and the unofficial watermark is removed when the https://solid.github.io/httpsig/ is already unofficial CG-DRAFT (using Respec). I suggest all applicable Solid CG work items should first transition to (unofficial) CG-DRAFT. Any work item that is deemed to be mature to be "official", we (CG) can make a request to W3C Team Process - something we currently have in the pipeline for some specs any way. Solid CG's use of versioning is already compatible with CG Report Requirements in the Copyright line: "REPORT NAME/VERSION". That is, the reports will say CG-DRAFT/FINAL as well as can mention the specific version. This helps to distinguish different CG-DRAFTs before a CG-FINAL. |
@ianbjacobs During the meeting, I understood that CG chairs can use the CG system to request CG-FINAL status. At the same time, I'm unclear about how this process of W3C Team approving a regular CG-DRAFT works. I was under the impression that CG can publish any CG-DRAFT without an approval step, it only needs to follow https://www.w3.org/community/reports/reqs/ |
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@elf-pavlik, the Team does not play any role in a group's decision to publish. I am joining this conversation to help with the requirements. |
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Since both ReSpec and Bikeshed add that UNOFFICIAL watermark, I assume this is required for any CG-DRAFT. I understand it is possible to override it and remove that watermark, but when is it appropriate to do it? Looking again at The Latest editor's draft does have the UNOFFICIAL watermark, while the Latest published version does not have any watermarks. @ianbjacobs, is there official guidance on how the UNOFFICIAL watermark is expected to be used on a CG-DRAFT document? |
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@elf-pavlik, I believe this watermark is by design. |
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The "W3C stylesheet for CG-DRAFT" being https://www.w3.org/StyleSheets/TR/2021/cg-draft |
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If the watermark is required, disabling it isn't a valid option. Does it mean that, for example, https://w3c.github.io/rdf-star/cg-spec doesn't meet the CG-DRAFT publishing requirements due to a lack of the UNOFFICIAL watermark? |
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@ianbjacobs , I've done the option 1 above for now (see below for details). If option 2 is also acceptable or another option is preferable, please let us know. Can you please have a look at this CG-DRAFT report (just published following #651 ) and confirm that it conforms to the W3C CG-DRAFT Report requirements:
"This version" and "Latest published version" are borrowed from W3C terminology, so you can expect "this version" to be the immutable version (for all intents and purposes, similar to the way W3C allows revising class-1 changes to Recs) after publication and "latest published version" to be mutable (content updated whenever there is a new version). If not, can you please let us know for any changes (either as a separate issue or in this issue would do), thanks. I have also updated the "Editor's Draft" of Solid Protocol: I have it set to use the W3C Base stylesheet: https://www.w3.org/StyleSheets/TR/2021/base.css and I have updated the text (copyright, sotd, etc.) to not state that it is a W3C CG report or endorsed by W3C in any way. I want to emphasise again that this "ED" is not same as W3C ED besides using the same terms: "editor's draft". If that is acceptable as well, we can then make sure to keep our CG-DRAFT reports and our EDs as visibly and content wise separate (not touch on "W3C") without being a bother to anyone. We (like many other CGs) have some need to publish some sort of a versioned release (e.g., CG-DRAFT, vX.Y.Z) for some of our documents as well as having an ED of sorts for internal, WIP, day-to-day stuff. Some of this discussion is also touched on w3c/tr-pages#102 Thanks! |
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Hi @csarven, First, thanks for working on this. The CG-DRAFT report looks good with respect to report requirements. For the Editor's Draft I have some minor questions. The status section states "This report was not published by the Solid Community Group." I wasn't certain about consistency of that statement with other metadata and so would like to hear your thoughts. Specifically:
Thanks again for working together on this. |
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Could someone please take a look at the updated https://solid.github.io/solid-oidc/ The approach is that any version will be a CG-DRAFT as an official work item of Solid CG. There will be tagged releases with snapshots and permalinks, all of which are just versions of the same CG-DRAFT. To avoid any confusion, I won't use Editor's draft terminology at all. Also, since this repository already uses a pull request workflow with reviews to introduce normative changes, The linked document uses a CG-DRAFT template provided by Bikeshed. @CxRes suggested that Solid CG CG Draft shouldn't use the W3C logo, but I think this needs to be clarified since that template uses the logo by default. |
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@elf-pavlik That, irrespective to whatever tooling you're using, doesn't conform to https://www.w3.org/community/reports/reqs/ , so you'll need to update the copyright and SotD. Removing "W3C" stuff was only in the case of CG communicating anything but CG-DRAFT/FINAL reports. So, CGs should only publish / communicate CG-DRAFT/FINAL. |
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To have SotD auto-injected by bikeshed, I may need to PR to bikeshed. This way, all SolidCG cg-drafts will have the same SotD. I will probably base it on https://github.com/speced/bikeshed/blob/main/bikeshed/spec-data/readonly/boilerplate/fedidcg/status.include As for copyright, it indeed looks different from what I see in https://fedidcg.github.io/FedCM/
I'm asking on bikeshed matrix channel how we can have something similar automatically added in all Solid CG drafts. |
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@elf-pavlik, I think one can use a copyright.include (but I am not a bikeshed pro.) |
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Thank you, @csarven and @ianbjacobs. I have created a PR for bikeshed to include default copyright and SotD for Solid CG drafts and final drafts. Once it is merged and the updated bikeshed is released, I will update all the 12 CG drafts that use bikeshed to render with that default text. EDIT: Preview available on https://elf-pavlik.github.io/solid-oidc/ |
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https://solid.github.io/solid-oidc/ has been updated to use text from https://www.w3.org/community/reports/reqs/ Bikeshed has the Solid CG included in https://github.com/speced/bikeshed-boilerplate/tree/main/boilerplate/solidcg I'm in the process of updating all the remaining bikeshed-based drafts. After that I will also update the script to cut versioned releases. Are there any outstanding TODOs in this issue, or can we close it? |
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I would like to express serious reservations about the changes to the copyright statement in Solid TRs that is being adopted! I find it extremely strange how work items can be "released" under the CLA. The CLA is not a licence in the traditional sense. The CLA is an agreement between "I" the contributor and "you" The Solid Community Group (and presumably other contributor in it). In particular, "you" cannot be interpreted as citizens of world or at least Berne convention signatories. Specifically, the statement says nothing about the rights that the Solid Community Group accords to the general public to use these specifications. It follows that without a license grant, the general public has no rights to "copy" these specifications. While I cannot speak for others, I had signed the CLA, and thus, waived my own rights over those contributions, under the assumption that my contributions will be permissively licensed by the Solid CG, i.e., my contributions will be available to the world at large, not just to a CG or its other contributors or the W3C. I expect the Solid CG to honour that expectation. Therefore, I would urge the statement be redrafted. If the statement is a W3C requirement, then W3C needs to seriously revisit them, not Solid CG be asked to release work items under a more restrictive license. I have no objection to stating that contributions were made to it under the CLA and thus Solid CG has copyrights to these contributions, but it must explicitly state how Solid CG makes the document in question available to the world at large. |
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@CxRes would this license work for you? https://www.w3.org/copyright/document-license/ I have no clue how all that legal stuff is supposed to work. I recall when we had a call with Rigo, there was a request to adjust the licence to allow reuse code snippets without need for a notice. TBH, it doesn't seem Solid specific, so if some clarifications come out, they should probably be shared outside of this issue and this CG. |
It would have, until recently. But it has a strange line in it:
This I feel is not suitable at the CG stage, where we should be encouraging people to experiment with new ideas. So now, I much rather prefer this: https://www.w3.org/copyright/software-license-2023/ |
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Hi all, Our CLA deed explains what contributors give under the CLA: Under the CLA, each contributor gives everyone: * Copyright – a royalty-free license to use the copyrights for their Contributions; see section 2 of the agreement. * Patent – a commitment to license on a royalty-free basis their essential patent claims reading on their Contributions; see sections 3 and 12 of the agreement as well as section 9 regarding transition to the W3C Recomendation Track. @CxRes, you wrote "I had signed the CLA ... under the assumption that my contributions ... will be available to the world at large". That is also my expectation per the CLA deed. If you have any additional questions, let me know. |
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@ianbjacobs Unfortunately, as I see it, things are not that simple... The CLA deed that you refer to has no legal standing. It says so right in the document:
FWIW, the preceding line also makes it clear actual CLA is an agreement between "I" and "you":
The CLA proper does not specify the term "everyone". AFAICT, the CLA does not specify how the "you" (entity who exercises the copyright) to which "I" (the contributor) have made the contribution, then licenses the resulting specification. In other words, there seems to be a massive gap between our shared expectations to make our contributions free and open to "everyone" and the reality of the CLA which is a limited agreement from "I" to "you", with no obligations on "you" except the attribution requirement in 2.2. Suffice to say, this is also a deviation from the normal practice in the industry, where CLA and licenses are separate. |
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(EDIT: What I am demanding here is that the W3C Solid CG (which is a separate legal entity from any individual contributors signing the CLA, for otherwise "I" could never sign a contract i.e. the CLA, with the W3C Solid CG), the "you" in this case, in exercising the copyright that "I" have granted "you" to publishing the specification, specify to what extant it waives its rights over the said copy. Also, in general, to what standards is a W3C BG/CG supposed to hold themselves to, when they reproduce a specification developed from contributors' contributions? That is what I expect to be clearly stated in a copyright statement on every specification. |
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All participants agree upon joining the group to the CLA for their contributions to a Specification. Through the CLA, a contributor agrees to the copyright/patent/other terms for "any person or entity exercises copyright or patent rights granted under this CLA." The copyright/patent grants are available to anyone who uses the Specification. That includes the ability to make derivative works (with attribution). How participants in the Solid community make agreements regarding contributions to work before it reaches a CG is outside of my purview. |
Including the CG, which exercises that copyright when it publishes a specification. I am pained to stress that, just because individual contributors have waived their rights of contributions to a body of work, does not automatically imply that a particular copy of the published work is freely available (this is literally the acedemic publishers' business model). A publisher can "without any obligation for accounting to me" republish/reuse the spec in any way it deems fit. In this circumstance and at the risk of repeating myself, I cannot help but demand that the CG (a separate entity from any individual contributor and not an "I" in the CLA) in its capacity as a publisher of these specifications explicitly specify, what claims it makes/waives on the copy it publishes in the copyright line, preferably through a license. Let me again stress that CG was already doing this for seven year, until about a month ago, when it abruptly switched templates.
Not at all what I am asking about! Please do not strawman the argument. This is about contributions that were made to the CG while it was publishing specifications under the MIT License. |
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@CxRes, I'm getting the impression that you are losing your patience. Please remember that everyone engaging in the discussion does their best to help. Could you describe a concrete scenario or two that you believe would be possible under the CLA and that you would like to prevent from happening? This way, we could clarify if the suggested scenario is possible under the CLA, and if it is, is it a future or a bug? |
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@CxRes, I believe I now understand your question regarding the license of the specification as an aggregation of contributions. Let me come back to you on this. |
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@elf-pavlik Yes and thanks for the friendly intervention. My experience coming from academia is that academics routinely waive their rights only for publishers to profit of their (typically public funded) work in increasingly devious schemes. This is not about coming up with a scenario but about the principle. If I am making a contribution to an ostensibly open source project, it is reasonable to ask that the custodians of the project will also commit to keeping the work open. By explicitly stating that it will do the right thing in black and white on top of each spec on the copyright line. Solid CG did so for 7 years and thats why I contributed. The reluctance to do so now speaks volumes. Changing of licenses should not be done on a whim. Licenses is serious stuff with serious consequences. See the Conservancy v Vizio lawsuit, for example. |
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Hi @CxRes, I don't think there's any reluctance. The group has been doing some cleanup, as requested by the staff. I mentioned the CLA deed earlier, which sets a very clear expectation about open licensing. If we have a glitch we will fix it with that goal in mind. Please stay tuned while I do some investigation. |
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@ianbjacobs Sure. Thanks! May I also point out Solid CG by its charter also requires the work items are released under W3C Software and Document License. |
I'm not sure yet whether that's relevant, but thank you for the heads-up on that. |
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I think nothing stops us from dual-licensing reports. So I think the appropriate course of action would be to add a W3C license to all our work items/reports, so that we at least now start complying with our own charter, even if they already are (and possibly stay) MIT-licensed as well. After reading Rahul’s comment I do agree with him that this statement:
is a bit surprising to me, does that also hold if the technical report in question explicitly mentions its sources with attribution? And what if this derivative work is itself W3C-licensed? I mean, our 0.10 spec is obviously a derivative work of our 0.9 spec, right? Can we read somewhere about why that "HOWEVER" was added and how it is to be interpreted if the derived work in question does fairly mention that it was derived from a CG report? Having people derive work from our work is, to me, a goal of our work as a CG, and not a problem to be prohibited right? |
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@michielbdejong I can give you some context on:
This line is from the W3C Document License which WG's typically use. @elf-pavlik was only enquiring about my preference there. This is not an issue of contention because the CG, by its charter, is required to use W3C Software and Document License which is essentially an MIT clone to include documents and does not have any such restriction. |
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Hi @CxRes, thank you for the question and for your patience while I researched the question. I have had an opportunity to discuss this with @rigow and @dontcallmedom. One note: in what follows, my focus is on copyright licenses (not patent commitments, which are not sublicensable). The Community Group copyright licensing system for draft Specifications involves the licensing of individual contributions under the terms set forth in the Contributor Licensing Agreement. This means a draft Specification is not licensed under one license, but under as many identical licenses as there are registered CG contributors. Once a CG specification has matured, we seek a more formal commitment on the entire Specification by inviting all participants to sign the Final Specification Agreement. Those are still individual commitments, but they are scoped to the entire Specification. This is legally equivalent to a non-viral license like a BSD license or an MIT license. Because each contributor licenses individually, there is no way to have another license without exposing the licensor to unpredictable risk. Whoever puts a single license on a CG Specification would be promising rights (that they do not generally own) from other people. |
Hi all,
In looking at a sample Solid technical report such as:
https://solidproject.org/TR/protocol
I would like to draw the CG's attention to our CG Report requirements:
https://www.w3.org/community/reports/reqs/
Among them notably, we have style requirements (to help people understand the status of documents) and copyright statement requirements (per the CG policies), etc.
I'd like to request that the CG make appropriate changes based on these requirements. Don't hesitate to contact me on team-community-process if you have questions.
Cheers,
Ian
[1] https://www.w3.org/community/about/process/summary/
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