Re: A call for open source DTDs

Dean Roddey (roddey@us.ibm.com)
Fri, 16 Oct 1998 13:58:55 -0400


>Let me elaborate a little on the problem. Let us suppose we have a DT=
D for
>plumbing. This DTD is copyright 1998 International Plumbers Associatio=
n.
>Can I legally place the DTD is an XML document of my own creation? The=

>answer is no. That would be the same as including an entire poem or ot=
her
>work in my document rather than quoting a part of it.
>

Irregardless of the legal issues, couldn't you make the practical argum=
ent that
anyone wishing to set themselves up as the all seeing all knowing metad=
ocument
in some heavily travelled area, and making their DTD the ubiquitous and=
offical
referent would pretty much have to allow all of the uses that you menti=
on? If
they don't, i.e. they limit its use or people's ability to freely embed=
it as
required, they the rest of the world is likely to just end run them and=
develop
their own most likely? I have a hard time imagining any DTD which is so=
complex
that if a lot of people needed it and one person had one with onerous u=
sibility
constraints, that ten other people or organizations wouldn't just in an=
d fix
the problem. So maybe some of these worries might be more technical tha=
n
practical perhaps? I would think that if I were that organization, and =
I wanted
my DTD to be ubiquitous, I'd allow any quoting or reference or embeddin=
g, with
a requirement to maintain a statement of my authorship and not to distr=
ibute mo
dified copies of it without making that clear. Does anyone think that D=
TDs are
going to be such a source of income that issues other than retaining
intellectual credit and control of content is going to be really big is=
sues?

Just a thought... but then again I'm a pinko commie shareware author :-=
)

----------------------------------------
Dean Roddey
Software Weenie
IBM Center for Java Technology - Silicon Valley
roddey@us.ibm.com
=