Quoting [Sam Johnston] (Feb 21 2010):
Andre,
Hi Sam,
The intention is that the specification be available under both licenses (at the user's discretion).
"at the user's discretion" -- that is good to know, and should be added to the text, IMHO. Thanks.
Being available under a Creative Commons license is [1]basically a requirement 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.
I am not sure I see that, so please indulge me. From a standard specification I expect it to be freely available, and to be able to distribute it unlimitely, and to be able to implement the described standard w/o any penalty. OGF IPR allows that. What are the OGF IPR restrictions you worry about? CC allows the same, but *also* allows to change the document, and to distribute that modified document again under the same terms. What I wonder, and sorry if I formulated that unclearly before: what is the use case for that, i.e. what is the problem you are trying to solve by Dual-licensing under OGF/CC?
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).
Woah, full stop please: I am just curious about the licensing mode, and ask questions about it, in order to *understand* it. No need to get defensive :-)
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.
I think I understand what you mean by trademark in respect to standard specs. I am not sure I see what you mean, that trademark prevents your API from being reused. Isn't that (a) the idea of interface standardization, and (b) enforced by licenses rather than trademarks? I never felt compelled not to use some API just because it has trademarks attached, as long as it was free... Am I misparsing your statement? Thanks, Andre.
Sam On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 7:41 PM, Andre Merzky <[2]andre@merzky.net> wrote:
Quoting [Sam Johnston] (Feb 18 2010):
We maintain a Google Code repository at
> [3]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. [4]http://code.google.com/p/occi/source/browse/docs/occi-copyright.p df 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.