[whatwg] Copyright of specifications

[Jim Ley]

On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 22:59:24 +0200, Håkon Wium Lie <howcome at opera.com> wrote:
> Also sprach Jim Ley:
> 
> > On Fri, 27 Aug 2004 17:51:25 +0000 (UTC), Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch> wrote:
> > > The specs have now all been updated so they have an explicit license grant
> > > that says "You are granted a license to use, reproduce and create
> > > derivative works of this document.".
> >
> > Right, could you explain why you were not able to get it assigned to
> > the public domain?
> 
> Probably for many of the same reasons that other open licences exist
> in addition to "public domain", e.g. the GNU Free Documentation
> License and Creative Commons.

So instead of using one of these Opera's lawyers decided a single line
giving a licence that is almost certainly revokable.

Remember I generally believe Opera are a responsible company, and
people generally say very nice things about their employees (including
Ian and Håkon of course) but still that doesn't mean at some point
A.N.Other company won't buy Opera, and create a completely different
situation - are you happy with Microsoft or Nokia having the ability
to revoke use of the Web Forms 2 spec?

> > clearly is now considered by Opera to be Opera's specification.
> 
> It's not. Try us: go create a derivative work!

And invite a lawsuit?  That would be extremely negligent...  :-)

Jim.