Open alerque opened 3 years ago
Crosslinking a message on the MPEG-OTSPEC mailing list from @tiroj that I think is related:
Q. If an implementation spec is developed in an open process, using appropriate collaborative tools and with a public and editable draft, and then submitted to ISO for standardisation, who then owns the content and can the draft in its current state continue to be public and provide the basis for subsequent development independent of the OFF text?
See at least the next two messages in that mailing list thread for follow up.
This issue of what license terms govern this repository was broached and discussed at length in issue #1. The issue was subsequently closed following commit 611bc2f, which clarified that participation anywhere in the process is automatically covered by ISO data policy:
This is quite clear (and as stated elsewhere I of course agree to these terms). However while this statement clarifies contributions and how they may be used relevant to ISO proceedings –clearly everything contributed to this repository will be covered by that policy– it does not clarify how submissions here are licensed relevant to other possible usage, and indeed leaves the whole repository in limbo.
I don't expect a lot of original content to accrue here, but this state of limbo is already blocking simple things like adding a glossary of terms relevant to this work (see #14). Sure this content could be used as part of a formal spec submission to the ISO, but otherwise the default state of affairs is that content remains copyrighted by the authors. Hence anything contributed here ends up on very dubious legal footing were other non ISO projects interested in re-using it. I think this runs contrary to what many/most of us are trying to accomplish here.
This concern was raised in #1, but discussion on that issue was also very sidetracked, hence the new issue. Comments there directly relevant to this issue cited here in entirety so discussion can continue here rather than being sidetracked into the other topics. First from @davelab6:
Then from myself:
Then from @fantasai:
And finally from @twardoch:
At this point the issue of licensing was left hanging, the discussion is on other topics.
I propose that in addition to agreeing to be bound by ISO data retention policy (which is a non-negotiable), we voluntarily also agree on a secondary open-source license, the terms of which would be applied to content submissions to this repository. This would make potential contributors free-er to collaborate across projects. Otherwise this is going to be a silo that people on the open-source end of things can't do much more than observe.
The most likely candidates for this secondary license seem to be BSD, MIT, or Apache.