RE: The DSSSList Digest V3 #82

[MARK.WROTH@xxxxxxxxxxx (Wroth, Mark)]

Sebastian Rahtz <sebastian.rahtz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

>>  > But since the sgml sources are online, shouldn't it be possible for us
>>  > to come up with a stylesheet that creates a nicer-looking version ?

>> be wary of what you may do here, relating to copyright. you may make a 
>> nice version, but you cannot distribute it. this is the stuffy old ISO 
>> you are dealing with, who are in the game of making money from selling
>> standards, to pay their staff in their expensive Geneva offices

and Adam Di Carlo <adam@xxxxxxxxxxx> replies: 

>This is incorrect.  Since government funding was used in the
>production of the DSSSL spec, it is therefore under public domain.

>AFAIK, distribution of the DSSSL spec is perfectly legal.  Even
>modification, although any modified spec should ethically carry heavy
>disclaimers and notices so no one confuses it for the official spec.

%%%%%%%%%%%

The site I pulled the DSSSL standard from said:

	Copyright
	Notice: Some material in the SC34 (including this one) collection 
	are under copyright by ISO, which expects them to be used only 
	for the purposes of standards development.  However, because 
	the U.S. Department of Energy, has supported the development 
	of SC34's standards and maintains this Web site (under contract 
	DE-AC05-84OR21400), it makes the following assertion:

	The U.S. Government retains a paid-up, non-exclusive, irrevocable, 
	world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of 
	these documents, prepare derivative works, distribute copies to 
	the public, and perform publicly and display publicly, or to allow 
	others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.

Since I'm not a lawyer, I'll leave it for others to parse what the impact of
that is. 

Having said that, though, I'll comment that the annotated XML spec (at
http://www.xml.com) was a nice compromise between the plain spec and a stand
alone book.  I also think a separate index to the DSSSL spec would be a good
thing (and, IMH (and non-lawyerly) O such an index would be a separate work
of scholarship, just
as a Biblical concordance is not the same as a Bible).


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