[Geowanking] ogc control? of kml

[Allan Doyle]

On Apr 24, 2008, at 12:39 AM, Raj Singh wrote:

> In my reading of the click-through, it's about equal to the most  
> liberal creative commons license. Anyone out there on the OGC  
> Planning Committee who can propose we get rid of this old, legacy  
> terminology and just adopt one of the nice, new CC licenses?

"About equal to" is not "the same as". The whole point behind CC  
licenses and other FOSS licenses is that if they become well-known  
enough, people can feel comfortable with the terms. If people keep  
introducing variants, then each new one has to be thoroughly parsed.  
See below for a partial parsing.

>
>
> But on the the question of having someone you might pass the spec on  
> to agreeing to the license terms, isn't this the same as with any  
> license? Or are you saying that the license is obnoxious if it makes  
> *you* responsible for getting licensing agreement from the person to  
> whom you transfer the document?

There are a number of difficulties.

Paragraph 4: "provided that all copyright notices on the intellectual  
property are retained intact"

Does that mean I have to keep the click through and glue it to the  
document?

Paragraph 4: "and that each person to whom the Intellectual Property  
is furnished agrees to the terms of this Agreement."

Does that mean I have to collect assurances from anyone I might hand  
the document on to?

Paragraph 10: "In the event any provision of this Agreement shall be  
deemed unenforceable, void or invalid, such provision shall be  
modified so as to make it valid and enforceable, and as so modified  
the entire Agreement shall remain in full force and effect. "

How will I ever find out if the provision was modified? Does that make  
me liable for future changes to the agreement?

Tthe HTML form also does a half-hearted job of tracking IP addresses.  
Does that mean that I also need to track the IP address of people who  
get the spec from me?
Note that even Mano from Google feels unable to send me a copy of the  
spec:
On Apr 24, 2008, at 4:43 PM, Mano Marks wrote:

> Hi Allan,
>
> I checked on it, and apparently we're restricted the same as anyone
> else, so we can't distribute the spec.
>
> Sorry,
> Mano

Given that OGC uses Gesmner Updegrove LLP, possibly the preeminent  
legal firm in the standards world, I would have to assume that the way  
the licensing is set up is deliberate and purposeful. If they had  
meant to make the specs available under CC licensing, they would have  
the legal wherewithal to do it.
	Allan
>
> ---
> Raj
>
>
> On Apr 23, 2008, at 10:06 PM, Allan Doyle wrote:
>>> Allan, you asked for a non license-agreement copy of something. Did
>>> you mean of the spec or just the documentation?
>>
>> I meant the spec. OGC has developed a silly click-through license  
>> that I have trouble parsing. It's either entirely benign, in which  
>> case why is it there? Or it requires me to make sure that anyone I  
>> might pass the spec on to must agree to the click-through, in which  
>> case the spec is not particularly useful to me.
>
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-- 
Allan Doyle
Director of Technology
MIT Museum
+1.617.452.2111