Re: ISO intellectual property (was Standards)

[Tom Bradford <bradford@dbxmlgroup.com>]

"Bullard, Claude L (Len)" wrote:
> 
> Well, maybe.  Apparently the W3C has different
> rules for its own documents and schemas.  Making
> references is a good thing.  The question is one
> of value.  What does the reference imply other
> than to assert that the work is derivative.

A reference doesn't assert anything other than the fact that it's a
reference.  Most IETF documents refer to others, which in no way makes
them derived works.  In fact, I could specify a brand new document with
all of the rules of XML, and have it be a totally legal derivation of
the XML specification, as long as I didn't copy from the original.  Ask
hollywood, they do it all the time... Most movies are released in 3's. 
Three asteroid movies at once...  Basically the same movie... Different
script, so nobody can get sued.  Three natural disaster movies at
once... Basically the same movie... Different script, so nobody can get
sued.

Now, if the W3C wanted to protect XML, they could patent it, but if the
ISO has patented SGML, most Patent and Trademark offices will quickly
catch that XML is a subset of SGML...  Except in the US, of course,
where they'll grant you a patent for just about anything.

> Beyond rights granted by putting the material
> into a fixed form, a copyright claimnant reserves rights.
> That would mean they are within their rights to make derivative
> works if granted such rights by the original holder
> of the copyright, yes?

Copyright does not protect intellectual property.  It protects the
recorded word in various forms.  Example, the source code for dbXML is
copyrighted.  But the fact that it's copyrighted doesn't mean that
somebody can't use our techniques to develop their own product.  And the
fact that we're Apache licensed means that they could even use our
source code to do it.  But they can't claim that they wrote the
dbXML...  That's the only thing that copyright protects.

-- 
Tom Bradford --- The dbXML Project --- http://www.dbxml.org/
We store your XML data a hell of a lot better than /dev/null