[uf-discuss] Re: Voluntary Public Domain declarations now enabled on the wiki

[Andy Mabbett]

In message <B8AEDAE6-9962-4531-9D21-3A21ED4FCCAE at alumni.caltech.edu>,
Rohit Khare <khare at alumni.caltech.edu> writes

>As soon as I first edited the wiki page to describe this strategy,
>Andy reached out to me to inquire how the public-domain release
>interacted with the original 2004 copyright statement.

I didn't "inquire" about anything; I wrote to you (in the light of your
previous interdict on using this mailing list for such discussions) and
said (verbatim quote):

  I note your recent edits:

    <http://microformats.org/wiki?title=Category:public_domain_license&curid=3627&diff=0&oldid=18440&rcid=29417>

  and:

    <http://microformats.org/wiki?title=User:Rohit&diff=0>

  While the "boilerplate" copyright notice:

    <http://microformats.org/wiki/Template:MicroFormatCopyrightStatement2004>

  remains in use on individual specs, I find those comments somewhat
  strange

>I don't have  any firm ideas at this point; Tantek replied to this
>thread by taking  the admirable step of clarifying that as much as
>possible for all of  the pages that he could, individually removing the
>2004 statement  from pages he'd edited.

I applaud him for doing so; but, at the time of writing, copyright in
both hCalendar and hCard is still claimed, in part, by "Technorati,
Inc.", by virtue of their being one of the three listed authors, and the
copyright statement that "This specification is (C) 2004-2007 by the
authors".

(Interestingly, Tantek says he's released the Geo and Adr specs into the
public domain, but Technorati are credited as either co-author or his
employer (the designation is not clear) - have they relinquished their
rights?)

hResume is still copyrighted to Ryan King.

Are AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft about to release their apparent rights over
hReview into the public domain?

I would also be very interested to know how the authors of rel-nofollow
justify their claim of copyright over a technique apparently conceived
by Google.

>Andy's initial public reaction did take me aback, though: while he  may
>be correct the PD text currently states that "unless otherwise  stated"
>(because that's what was copied from Wikipedia),

If such text was copied and used with out due consideration for its
meaning, that would be very unfortunate.

>the intent  is different.

Alleged intent, in such matters, is worth diddly squat; especially in
the light of the unambiguous statements to the contrary: copyright of
several specs (and thereby the underlying microformats) apparently rests
with a number of individuals and organisations, who have not, as yet,
either waived it or given free licence to use it.

>More generally,though, I think volunteering in this case makes for
>better game-theory than holding back until 'everyone else' commits to
>a more open strategy first.

Who has said that they will wait for "everyone else" to do so? What I
have said is that I will relinquish my rights, gladly, when the
individual extant microformats are available freely. I look forward to
that time.

-- 
Andy Mabbett