[okfn-discuss] Licenses and Waivers

Wed Sep 15 14:02:39 UTC 2010

Hi,

I want to update the documentation for voiD[1] (an RDF vocabulary for
describing datasets) to include discussion of waivers and the Waiver
Vocabulary[2].
Currently, the voiD guide recommends using dcterms:license[3] to point
to the license of a dataset. The waiver vocabulary introduces
wv:waiver to point toa document waiving rights over a dataset.
.
Two things worry me:

* It's not always obvious whether to use dcterms:license or wv:waiver.
eg: PDDL is a license, and declares a waiving of rights?
* to work out the terms of use of a dataset, you have to look at the
values(s) of both dcterms:license and wv:waiver.

Would it be wrong to use dcterms:license to point to a waiver?
Could wv:waiver be regarded as a more special kind of dcterms:license
or is it a different thing?

Thanks

Keith

[1] http://rdfs.org/ns/void/guide
[2] http://vocab.org/waiver/terms/
[3] http://purl.org/dc/terms/license