RE: Standards (yet again) was RE: Use of XML ?

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

Nonsense?  Hmm.  Usually a legal test is 
required to determine who owns intellectual 
property and I contend that regardless of 
the copyrights, SGML constitutes intellectual 
property, but let's say you are right.

"A profile is not a derivative work." 

Interesting position.  No safeguards at all. 
Just open ranges, sheep, cattlemen and hired guns.
 
What happens if the W3C decides that XML is not 
to be a profile in the future, but a completely 
separate work?

What happens if ISO decides to ammend SGML such 
that all of the features of XML are now SGML 
features, including refining a series of application 
languages based on it that include all of the 
features of the W3C specifications without 
referencing the originals (today XML is an 
SGML subset so a deal was made)?

Is Microsoft free to extend Java in any way 
they see fit as long as they don't call it Java 
and someone calls Java a "standard"?   

Len 
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan [mailto:jcowan@reutershealth.com]

Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:

> Let me repeat this
> so it is clear what I mean:  SGML belongs to ISO just as surely
> as XML does to the W3C.


The SGML standard is copyright ISO, that's true.  But the XML
Recommendation does not appropriate any of ISO's copyrights.
(AFAIK ISO has no patents, trade secrets, or trademarks save
perhaps "ISO" and the various full forms.)

> Were one to repeat Jon's endeavor
> today, any one of several organizations could under the international
> laws that seek to arbitrate disputes among trading partners fire
> down on that person or self-selected group like a crow with a
> machine gun.  IOW, the original SGML On The Web SIG would be in jail.  


Eh?  Nonsense.  There is nothing illegal about making a profile
of an International Standard, or publishing it either.
A profile is not a derivative work.

-- 
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