[uf-dev] Specification for Inline XBRL 0.54

[Diane Mueller]

Manu and Rohit,

It is my understanding that all of the XBRL specifications are
available royalty-free.  Although I completely understand your need to
have Rohit's review of our IP policy before commenting.

You can find the IP policy at
http://www.xbrl.org/Legal2/XBRL-IP-Policy-2007-02-20.pdf  and I have
added Hugh Wallis, XBRL International's Technical Director to this
thread so that he can answer any of your questions directly.

Kind Regards,

Diane Mueller
Chair, Rendering Working Group

dmueller2001 at gmail.com




On Feb 6, 2008 5:09 PM, Manu Sporny <msporny at digitalbazaar.com> wrote:
> Diane Mueller wrote:
> > Your feedback is eagerly sought on this specification, as we are quite
> > interested in aligning with the microformats & RDFa work where & when
> > possible.
>
> Just to point out something that wasn't stated in the e-mail that Diane
> sent to the list. The XBRL draft is subject to XBRL International's IP
> Policy, which states:
>
> """
> 4.1.     Ownership of XBRL Recommendations. Subject to the ownership of
> the copyright in each Contribution by its respective Contributor in
> accordance with section 4.2 below, XBRL International will own the
> copyright in the Final Recommendation.
> """[1]
>
> There are a couple of other paragraphs about patents in there that raise
> a couple of red flags.
>
> I'm not suggesting that this is their intention, but one possibility is
> this:
>
> The license to edit, copy, modify, or use XBRL is not royalty-free. One
> of us could submit an idea to them and they could copyright the text or
> submit a patent covering the idea. This could come back to bite the uF
> community if the idea is useful because XBRL would have rights to that
> idea and the text surrounding the idea.
>
> I wouldn't give any feedback until Rohit can take a look at their IP
> Policy and get back to us on a reasonable way to move forward, if there
> is any.
>
> Sorry Diane, the fact that you're creating a "standard" that is not
> royalty-free to everybody shows that XBRL is currently not interested in
> the type of open standards that this community creates.
>
> You should have a chat with Rohit Khare - he handles all legal matters
> regarding this community. He is cc'ed on this e-mail.
>
> -- manu
>
> [1]http://www.xbrl.org/Legal2/XBRL-IP-Policy-2007-02-20.pdf
>
> --
> Manu Sporny
> President/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> blog: RDFa Basics in 8 minutes (video)
> http://blog.digitalbazaar.com/2008/01/07/rdfa-basics/
>



-- 
Vice President, New Market Development
Justsystems

(c) 604.765.3635
(skype) xbrlspy
(work email) diane at justsystems.com
(alt email) Dmueller2001 at gmail.com