PROPOSAL: Relicensing W3C Specifications

Status 2014-12-05: See the approved version of this proposal.

Status 2014-08: This (public) proposal was reviewed by the W3C Membership. It is superseded by an October 2014 proposal.

Proposal

At times the Director may wish to (re)publish a specification originally published under the W3C Document License under a different copyright license (e.g., one that is more permissive), to achieve certain aims. For example, W3C may cease work on a specification before it has been finalized as a Recommendation, yet the community may wish to continue working on it. This proposal describes the considerations for making a relicensing decision.

Considerations

The Director will consider the following (and possibly other topics) as part of the decision to relicense:

• Who requested? Who requested the specification be relicensed (e.g., a group, a Member, a developer)? What reasons did they provide?
• Finished? Is the specification a draft or a Recommendation?
• Chartered? Is the topic of the specification within the scope of a currently chartered Working Group? If not, how long ago did chartered work end? Is W3C planning to launch a group in this area in the near future?
• Abandoned? Has a Working Group reached a consensus decision to cease work on the specification? Are they pursuing an entirely different path? If the group has not edited the specification lately, is it a prioritization issue or passive abandonment?
• Superseded? Has the specification been superseded by other technology? If so, how long ago?
• Deployed? How widely adopted is the technology? Is it interoperably deployed?
• Fragmentation? Whether or not the technology is already deployed, is there a strong risk of fragmentation?
• IPR? Are there any known patent licensing concerns?
• Harmful? Has the Director chosen to stop work or rescind a Recommendation because the Director deems the work harmful to the Web?

Scenarios when the Director might not relicense

• A Working Group is working on —and intends to continue to work on— the specification.
• The specification is a widely deployed W3C Recommendation.
• Even if not yet a Recommendation, the technology is widely deployed, and there is a high risk of fragmentation.
• The specification was abandoned due to patent licensing concerns.
• Publication under a permissive license would propagate harmful technology.
• W3C has near-term plans to resume the work.
• The Membership has previously expressed strong reservations about publishing a particular technology under a permissive license.

Process

• The Director proposes to the Advisory Committee and public to relicense all or part of a specification. Note from review: How is public review invited and managed?
  • Note based on review: Make clearer that this is an AC review and we are asking the AB for feedback.
• The proposal MUST include the rationale for the decision, the evaluation of the above considerations, and the new license.
• The review period MUST last at least 4 weeks, after which the Director announces a decision (to relicense or not).

Publication

If the Director's decision is to relicense:

• If the Specification is not a W3C Note, it is published as such with the new license. Otherwise, the Note is updated in place with the new license.
• If the proposal was to relicense a portion of a specification, that portion is published as a Note with the new license.

Licenses

The Director's preferred licensing strategy will depend on the situation. However, for a permissive license, the Director expects to use the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY) or subsequent version of the license.

Other licensing considerations

• If work is not to continue in a Working Group, the Director may encourage people to work in a Community Group because under the CLA it will be easier to bring revisions back to a Working Group. One issue that will have to be addressed is whether there is sufficient patent clarity when the CG takes up the work. We recognize that by distributing our specifications under a permissive license, we may find more instances when we want to bring work back in to W3C, and related patent issues.

Questions? Ian Jacobs <site-policy@w3.org>

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