Re: [whatwg] HTML 5: Wording of "license" link type is too narrow

[Ian Hickson]

On Sat, 2 Feb 2008, Dave Hodder wrote:

>
> The scope of the "license" link type in section 4.12.3 seems too narrow
> to me.  It's presently described like this:
>
>     Indicates that the current document is covered by the copyright
>     license described by the referenced document.
>
> I think the word "copyright" should be removed, allowing other types of
> intellectual property licence to be specified as well.  As a use case,
> take for example a piece of documentation that is Apache-licensed:
>
>     <p>This piece of useful documentation may be used under the
>     terms of the <a rel="license"
>     ref="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0">Apache License,
>     Version 2.0</a>.  Please note that Example™ is a trademark
>     of Example.com Enterprises.</p>
>
> The license link not only refers to copyright law, but also trademark
> law and patent law.

Sure, the license can cover things other than copyright. But it is
primarily a copyright license, and that is the part that the rel="license"
keyword is referring to. The copyright license being part and parcel of a
bigger license isn't a problem, IMHO.

In particular, we don't want people to use rel=license to point to
trademark licenses or patent licenses that _aren't_ copyright licenses.


> On a related note, should the "copyright" keyword really be a synonym
> for "license"?  They seem to have distinct purposes to me:
>
>     <meta name=copyright
>             content="Copyright 2009-2010 Example.com Enterprises">
>     <link rel=license
>         href="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0"
>         type="text/html">

The namespace of the "name" and "rel" attributes is distinct. The
name=copyright above doesn't fall into the scope of the part of the spec
that defines rel=copyright as a synonym for rel=license.

Cheers,
--
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

[Arne Johannessen]

Ian Hickson wrote:

> On Sat, 2 Feb 2008, Dave Hodder wrote:
>>
>> The scope of the "license" link type in section 4.12.3 seems too  
>> narrow
>> to me.  It's presently described like this:
>>
>>    Indicates that the current document is covered by the copyright
>>    license described by the referenced document.
>>
>> I think the word "copyright" should be removed, allowing other  
>> types of
>> intellectual property licence to be specified as well.  As a use  
>> case,
>> take for example a piece of documentation that is Apache-licensed:
>>
>>    <p>This piece of useful documentation may be used under the
>>    terms of the <a rel="license"
>>    ref="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0">Apache License,
>>    Version 2.0</a>.  Please note that Example™ is a trademark
>>    of Example.com Enterprises.</p>
>>
>> The license link not only refers to copyright law, but also trademark
>> law and patent law.
>
> Sure, the license can cover things other than copyright. But it is
> primarily a copyright license, and that is the part that the  
> rel="license"
> keyword is referring to. The copyright license being part and parcel  
> of a
> bigger license isn't a problem, IMHO.

Agreed.


> In particular, we don't want people to use rel=license to point to
> trademark licenses or patent licenses that _aren't_ copyright  
> licenses.

Why not, what's the downside?

What is the correct way to mark up links to, say, a trademark license  
_not_ covering copyright, given the current draft of the spec?

--
Arne Johannessen

[Křištof Želechovski]

The correct markup for a link trademark license would be
<A HREF="tmlic.html" />™</A >
A trademark license does not apply to a Web page.  It may of course apply to
the product described on the page but such information is meaningless to
HTML spiders and publishing tools; information an HTML-ignorant end user is
expected to make use of should be exposed in the language she understands,
not with specially dedicated HTML markup.
That is, of course, IMHO - I am not a lawyer.
Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: whatwg-bounces@...
[mailto:whatwg-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Arne Johannessen
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 10:24 AM
To: Ian Hickson
Cc: WHAT WG List; public-html-comments@...
Subject: Re: [whatwg] HTML 5: Wording of "license" link type is too narrow

Ian Hickson wrote:

> On Sat, 2 Feb 2008, Dave Hodder wrote:
>>
>> The scope of the "license" link type in section 4.12.3 seems too  
>> narrow
>> to me.  It's presently described like this:
>>
>>    Indicates that the current document is covered by the copyright
>>    license described by the referenced document.
>>
>> I think the word "copyright" should be removed, allowing other  
>> types of
>> intellectual property licence to be specified as well.  As a use  
>> case,
>> take for example a piece of documentation that is Apache-licensed:
>>
>>    <p>This piece of useful documentation may be used under the
>>    terms of the <a rel="license"
>>    ref="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0">Apache License,
>>    Version 2.0</a>.  Please note that Example™ is a trademark
>>    of Example.com Enterprises.</p>
>>
>> The license link not only refers to copyright law, but also trademark
>> law and patent law.
>
> Sure, the license can cover things other than copyright. But it is
> primarily a copyright license, and that is the part that the  
> rel="license"
> keyword is referring to. The copyright license being part and parcel  
> of a
> bigger license isn't a problem, IMHO.

Agreed.


> In particular, we don't want people to use rel=license to point to
> trademark licenses or patent licenses that _aren't_ copyright  
> licenses.

Why not, what's the downside?

What is the correct way to mark up links to, say, a trademark license  
_not_ covering copyright, given the current draft of the spec?

--
Arne Johannessen

[Ian Hickson]

On Wed, 28 May 2008, Arne Johannessen wrote:
> >
> > In particular, we don't want people to use rel=license to point to
> > trademark licenses or patent licenses that _aren't_ copyright
> > licenses.
>
> Why not, what's the downside?

It dilutes the point of the feature. The idea is to provide a way for
tracking pages that are covered by a particular copyright license.


> What is the correct way to mark up links to, say, a trademark license
> _not_ covering copyright, given the current draft of the spec?

Something like:

   <p><small>See our <a href="trademark.html">trademark
   license</a>.</small></p>

In practice it's a non-issue since people rarely have Trademark licenses.
Same with Patent licenses.

--
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

[Arne Johannessen]

Ian Hickson wrote:

> On Wed, 28 May 2008, Arne Johannessen wrote:
>>
>>
>>> In particular, we don't want people to use rel=license to point to  
>>> trademark licenses or patent licenses that _aren't_ copyright  
>>> licenses.
>>
>> Why not, what's the downside?
>
> It dilutes the point of the feature. The idea is to provide a way  
> for tracking pages that are covered by a particular copyright license.

Ah, makes sense.


>> What is the correct way to mark up links to, say, a trademark  
>> license _not_ covering copyright, given the current draft of the  
>> spec?
>
> Something like:
>
>   <p><small>See our <a href="trademark.html">trademark
>   license</a>.</small></p>

All right, so in other words there is no special mark up for this  
particular case.


> In practice it's a non-issue since people rarely have Trademark  
> licenses.
> Same with Patent licenses.

Point taken.

I was about to suggest adding a note explaining the reason for not  
using rel=license to mark up trademark license links, but that's  
pretty pointless in practice. I now think the current wording of the  
spec is fine.

--
Arne Johannessen