dpANS copyright status (again)
in [Lisp]
|
From: Helmut Eller on 17 Apr 2010 18:57 Does somebody know some facts about the copyright of the Tex sources of the drafts[1] of the ANSI Standard? Who's the copyright holder and why do the dpANS not carry any license information? A webpage[2] of Franz says this: The ANS is a very large standard, about 1400 pages in printed form. As the technical deliberations of X3J13 were nearing completion, it became apparent to the committee that the editorial task to draft the standard would not be feasible using part-time volunteer effort. An informal industry consortium was formed through which several vendor organizations funded a full-time editor for about a year and a half. The consortium stipulated that drafts produced by that editor were to be made available to X3J13 to submit to ANSI, and also to members of the consortium and any other interested parties. Three draft proposed American National Standards (dpANS) were subsequently produced. dpANS 1 was a working draft and received extensive review and revision by X3J13. dpANS 2 was then created to resolve all remaining technical issues; X3J13 made no intentional changes in technical content after dpANS 2. dpANS 3 improved wording in a few places and extensively reworked the Credits section, not a normative part of the standard. Further formatting changes and boilerplate additions were executed by ANSI in their process of producing the standard, but these have no technical implications. The document in these pages is derived from dpANS2. It is a semi-mechanical translation of the original TeX into HTML. While ANSI X3.226-1994 is the definitive, official standard, this HTML version of dpANS2 is believed to be equivalent in all content of technical consequence. So apparently the dpANS should be available to "any other interested parties" but the Tex sources don't carry any copyright information i.e. it's not allowed to translate them to HTML and distribute the translated files. Is this ever going to be "fixed" and how did Lispworks and Franz (or for that matter ANSI) obtain the permission to produce and distribute their HTML versions? Shouldn't there be some record of all this license stuff? The dpANS for Forth[3] has a very clear copyright: Copyright (c) 1994 by Technical Committee X3J14. All rights reserved. This is a working document of Technical Committee X3J14 which represents the last draft of ANS Forth submitted to ANSI for publication. Permission is hereby granted to copy this document provided that it is copied in its entirety without alteration or as altered by (1) adding text that is clearly marked as an insertion; (2) shading or highlighting existing text; and/or (3) deleting examples. Specifically, permission is granted to use this working document as the foundation for textbooks, system manuals, and online documentation so long as the requirements in the preceding paragraph are met and the resulting product addresses a technical need that is not practically met by the official ANS. why the heck does our standard not contain such important information? Helmut [1] http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/ai-repository/ai/lang/lisp/doc/standard/ansi/0.html [2] http://www.franz.com/search/search-ansi-about.lhtml [3] http://forth.sourceforge.net/standard/dpans/dpans1.htm#foreword
From: D Herring on 17 Apr 2010 23:48 On 04/17/2010 06:57 PM, Helmut Eller wrote: .... > record of all this license stuff? The dpANS for Forth[3] has a very > clear copyright: > > Copyright (c) 1994 by Technical Committee X3J14. All rights reserved. > > This is a working document of Technical Committee X3J14 which represents > the last draft of ANS Forth submitted to ANSI for > publication. Permission is hereby granted to copy this document provided > that it is copied in its entirety without alteration or as altered by > (1) adding text that is clearly marked as an insertion; (2) shading or > highlighting existing text; and/or (3) deleting examples. > > Specifically, permission is granted to use this working document as the > foundation for textbooks, system manuals, and online documentation so > long as the requirements in the preceding paragraph are met and the > resulting product addresses a technical need that is not practically met > by the official ANS. > > why the heck does our standard not contain such important information? Various and sundry reasons. Many of which relate to CL being at the vanguard of language standardization. Discussions with Kent Pitman and others indicate that dpANS was intended to be public domain or a license similar to above. However, the authors apparently never signed any papers to that effect. Actually, I'm unclear how even ANSI has rights to the spec. The HyperSpec actually obtained a license agreement from ANSI (see acknowledgements in [1]). Unfortunately, the CLHS acts as a straw man against efforts to clarify the dpANS license in general. [1] http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Front/Help.htm#Legal There's a good chance its perfectly legal to publish derivative works of dpANS. As it currently stands, the question is rather whether you are able to efficiently handle any honest challenges or vexatious litigation. To that end, somebody told me open discussions probably aren't helpful. Give the likes of SCO an inch, ... Isn't it time for a new language anyway? ;) - Daniel P.S. CLtL2 is a similar document. Guy Steele indicated he would be willing to work with his publisher to allow its use in derivative works with substantial new content.
From: Helmut Eller on 18 Apr 2010 05:26 * D Herring [2010-04-18 05:48+0200] writes: > On 04/17/2010 06:57 PM, Helmut Eller wrote: > ... >> record of all this license stuff? The dpANS for Forth[3] has a very >> clear copyright: >> >> Copyright (c) 1994 by Technical Committee X3J14. All rights reserved. >> >> This is a working document of Technical Committee X3J14 which represents >> the last draft of ANS Forth submitted to ANSI for >> publication. Permission is hereby granted to copy this document provided >> that it is copied in its entirety without alteration or as altered by >> (1) adding text that is clearly marked as an insertion; (2) shading or >> highlighting existing text; and/or (3) deleting examples. >> >> Specifically, permission is granted to use this working document as the >> foundation for textbooks, system manuals, and online documentation so >> long as the requirements in the preceding paragraph are met and the >> resulting product addresses a technical need that is not practically met >> by the official ANS. >> >> why the heck does our standard not contain such important information? > > Various and sundry reasons. Many of which relate to CL being at the > vanguard of language standardization. Well, ANS Forth is from 1994 only a year later than the Lisp standard. And I would be surprised if ANSI C didn't exist long before that. Certainly ANSI CL didn't innovate on the copyright front :-) > Discussions with Kent Pitman and others indicate that dpANS was > intended to be public domain or a license similar to above. However, > the authors apparently never signed any papers to that > effect. Actually, I'm unclear how even ANSI has rights to the spec. I was wondering that too and why would ANSI have any authority to give Pitman permission to make the HyperSpec based on dpANS. And where's the contract that gives ANSI permission to sell the standard. > The HyperSpec actually obtained a license agreement from ANSI (see > acknowledgements in [1]). Unfortunately, the CLHS acts as a straw man > against efforts to clarify the dpANS license in general. > > [1] http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Front/Help.htm#Legal > > There's a good chance its perfectly legal to publish derivative works > of dpANS. As it currently stands, the question is rather whether you > are able to efficiently handle any honest challenges or vexatious > litigation. To that end, somebody told me open discussions probably > aren't helpful. Give the likes of SCO an inch, ... > > > Isn't it time for a new language anyway? ;) The current standard gets renewed every couple of years right? Without any changes of course, but I guess somebody from Franz or Lispworks still needs to sign some paper. Who are those people and can't they shed some light on the copyright issue? Helmut
From: Tim Bradshaw on 18 Apr 2010 06:25 On 2010-04-18 10:26:23 +0100, Helmut Eller said: > The current standard gets renewed every couple of years right? > Without any changes of course, but I guess somebody from Franz or > Lispworks still needs to sign some paper. Who are those people and > can't they shed some light on the copyright issue? I don't think it is every couple of years. Having watched the kind of prolonged nightmare that BSD went through, then the whole SCO thing, I would think anyone's response would be to run as fast as they can from even thinking about it.
From: D Herring on 18 Apr 2010 10:13
On 04/18/2010 05:26 AM, Helmut Eller wrote: > The current standard gets renewed every couple of years right? > Without any changes of course, but I guess somebody from Franz or > Lispworks still needs to sign some paper. Who are those people and > can't they shed some light on the copyright issue? ?!?? Nobody touches the standard. ANSI hardly remembers they even have a copy. - Daniel |