Andre, The intention is that the specification be available under both licenses (at the user's discretion). Being available under a Creative Commons license is basically a requirement<http://www.google.com/search?q=cloud+api++%22creative+commons%22>for Cloud APIs nowdays (much to my satisfaction) and anything else - especially the OGF default (which is far more restrictive than even the DMTF license!) - will surely stifle adoption whether justified or not. If that doesn't work for the OGF then I'll just release it under CC myself and remove/rewrite others' contributions (assuming they don't agree to do the same, which would surprise me). I think the important thing in terms of the *normative* specification is to rely on trademark rather than copyright law - at the end of the day it's more effective anyway and it doesn't prevent your APIs from being reused by others. Sam On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 7:41 PM, Andre Merzky <andre@merzky.net> wrote:
Quoting [Sam Johnston] (Feb 18 2010):
We maintain a Google Code repository at http://code.google.com/p/occi/ ...
Hi Sam, all,
the project states on the entry page, as it should :-), that all material is under OGF IPR. http://code.google.com/p/occi/source/browse/docs/occi-copyright.pdf states pretty much the same, but additionally states that
"The Open Cloud Computing Interface (OCCI) by Open Grid Forum is dual-licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License"
While I am a big fan of dual- or multi-licensing for source code, I would appreciate the motivation for dual-licensing the OCCI specification: what is the problem you are trying to solve?
In particular, I do not understand how Creative Commons makes sense for a *normative* specification, as the usual use case for CC is to create derivative work - which almost by definition will break the standard, and will lead to confusion what document remains normative etc.
Also, there are two modi operandi for dual licensing, AFAICS: either the end user is free to pick what license to apply to the document, or the end user is required to adhere to the specifics of both licenses. I assume that you choose the first modus, but that is not explicitely stated in the document - as statement to that respect should be added. The second modus wuld not make much sense IMHO, as the OGF IPR seems, to me, more constrained than CC (no changes allowed), and the additional CC license would thus have no effect whatsoever?
I know that license discussions can be tedious and tend to be emotional. Also, we all are probably not lawyers :-) Anyway, if you or someone initiated could shed some light on how and why that approach was chosen, I would appreciate the insight.
Best, Andre.
-- Nothing is ever easy.