ISSUE-250: The mobileOK License

mobileOK License

The mobileOK License

State:

CLOSED

Product:

mobileOK scheme

Raised by:

Jo Rabin

Opened on:

2008-05-22

Description:

(I'm raising this as a new issue as I couldn't find a relevant old one ...)

This looks like a good start.

A couple of points:

a) there are links e.g. to "how to" which don't exist

b) we need to make sure that this ties in with the mobileOK Scheme document which Chaals drafted but which we haven't discussed

c) The following thorny (to my mind) issue has not been resolved yet (by us)

"also developed a logo for mobileOK® to be shown on conformant web pages"

Actually, on multiserved pages the logo may be on a non-conformant page, whose URI, when resolved by a mobileOK checker, must be conformant.

(I'm sorry if I appear to be beating a drum I have beaten before, but afaik we have not properly concluded anything on this)

d) "To check that your work is conformant to mobileOK® Basic, you can use one of the licensed mobileOK® checkers"

We don't have a scheme for licensing mobileOK checkers ... yet. (also shouldn't this be in the third person, like the rest of the document?)

Also, I'm afraid this raises the other thorny issue which is that using a checker tells you only that a URI resolves to something that PASSes at the time the check was run. A claim of conformance is not made in retrospect for a past version of a page, it's made in respect of the potential of a future version of a page fulfilling the appropriate criteria. Consequently, I'm worried that the mention of the checker in the license terms has an implication that just because you ran the checker a couple of years back and it didn't indicate any problems, you fulfill the terms of the license.

And once again, sorry to drag this old chestnut out, but the nature of the claim is not dependent on what the checker says, necessarily. Since if there is a bug in the checker then your claim of conformance should be valid, even though the checker may say it is not. So what the checker says is not conclusive one way or the other.

e) "Note: Advise is given to make the logo available only on classic pages and not on pages served to mobile devices. " I think needs to be clarified. Since it looks confusingly like, when taken with the c) above, that the logo should never be used when you serve a mobile experience and a desktop experience from the same URI.

A slight quibble is also that the mobileOK logo is a PNG and therefore by definition including it in a page will automatically mean the page isn't mobileOK. Or do we mean that its the graphic and not the specific file that is pointed to in the license? So do we mean that the graphic can be presented in different formats? Or sizes? Or colors?

(also, "Advise" is always a verb in British English, not sure abut US usage)

f) While we are working on this, should we include the future case of claims expressed in POWDER, which to my lay reading is not covered.

g) We resolved in Seoul to have an "aspirational" level. We need to be clear how that relates, or whether in fact that was a bad idea that needs to be un-resolved.



Jo


xref: ACTION-401 and ACTION-532


On 21/05/2008 13:46, Dominique Hazael-Massieux wrote:
> Hi,
>
> A few weeks ago, Rigo Wenning, the W3C legal council (cc-d to that
> message), provided us a draft version of the associated licenses and
> policies for mobileOK Basic - which I miserably failed to forward to the
> group in a timely fashion.
>
> The document is at:
> http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2008/04-mobileok-policy.html
>
> The basic idea is to rely on the trademark that W3c owns on mobileOK to
> impose a trademark license, allowing only those that passes the tests
> defined in the specification to call their pages "mobileOK basic". The
> mobileOK Basic logo itself relies on copyright regulations for
> protecting its usage.
>
> This is of course only a draft, and can be improved over time; ideally,
> we would have first an internal discussion of the document in the group,
> before probably inviting Rigo to one of our call if we need further
> clarifications, or if we see missing aspects in the current document.
>
> Dom
>
>

Related Actions Items:

• ACTION-762 on Jo Rabin to Review ISSUE-250 with a view to how this affects content of mobileOK scheme - due 2008-05-29, closed
• ACTION-869 on Jo Rabin to Review the mobileOK license in more details and send further questions to rigo - due 2008-10-27, closed

Related emails:

1. Minutes 14-07-2009 (from phila@w3.org on 2009-07-14)
2. [minutes] BPWG 2008-11-13 (from fd@w3.org on 2008-11-13)
3. Re: New draft of mobileOK Scheme 2008-11-06 (from jrabin@mtld.mobi on 2008-11-07)
4. [minutes] BPWG F2F day 1 - 2008-10-20 (from fd@w3.org on 2008-10-22)
5. [minutes] Thursday 11 September 2008 (from fd@w3.org on 2008-09-11)
6. [minutes] BPWG F2F in Sophia, day 3 (from fd@w3.org on 2008-06-18)
7. Re: ISSUE-250 (mobileOK License): The mobileOK License [mobileOK Basic tests] (from jrabin@mtld.mobi on 2008-05-22)
8. [minutes] BPWG Teleconference 2008-05-22 (from fd@w3.org on 2008-05-22)
9. Regrets, report on accessibility document progress (from achuter@technosite.es on 2008-05-22)
10. Re: ISSUE-250 (mobileOK License): The mobileOK License [mobileOK Basic tests] (from dom@w3.org on 2008-05-22)
11. [Agenda] BPWG Teleconference 2008-05-22 (from jrabin@mtld.mobi on 2008-05-22)
12. ISSUE-250 (mobileOK License): The mobileOK License [mobileOK Basic tests] (from sysbot+tracker@w3.org on 2008-05-22)

Related notes:

Display change log