[od-discuss] v2.0 dev section 1 review

Fri Mar 7 04:53:53 UTC 2014

On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 5:25 AM, Herb Lainchbury
<herb at dynamic-solutions.com>wrote:

> I have updated v2.0 dev as per our most recent discussion.
>
> # Goals
> As I mentioned on that call I think the principle goal of v2 is to simply
> make it easier to determine conformance of licenses by separating those
> clauses that deal with license issues from those that deal with the
> application of those licenses to works.
>
> A secondary goal is to reorient the phrasing of some of the conformance
> conditions so that they talk about what MUST be true about the license as
> opposed to what MUST NOT be true.  A subtle change but one which we think
> will determination simpler.
>
>
These are very useful concepts in computer protocols (which are effectively
human machine contracts).
See https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt - an Internet RFC - from which we
might adapt some language.

I deal with publisher contracts and they are often VERY badly written. IN
contract computer specs are often very clear (they have to be). So the
closer that a licence can come to a formal decision-making document the
easier for humans as well as machines to come to a common view.

I'd see language like:

All Open Documents MUST contain a formal statement of copying and re-use
conditions
Open documents SHOULD contain version numbers of any licence scheme used.
Open documents SHOULD avoid the phrase "published under a Creative Commons
licence" (some are highly restrictive).
Open documents MUST NOT contain the phrase "All rights reserved"
Open document SHOULD contain metadata about authorship.

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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