[LEGAL-386] Redistribution/inclusion of entity definitions for HTML (licensing consequences)

• Type: Question
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Invalid
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Matthias Bläsing
• Created: 23/May/18 17:53
• Updated: 26/Jun/18 16:56
• Resolved: 26/Jun/18 16:56

Description

Apache Netbeans (incubating) contains an HTML editor and also processes HTML data for other usages. The html standard files are available from the W3C, one example would be XHTML 1.0 strict. The definition can be found here:

https://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd

That file references three more files:

https://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/DTD/xhtml-lat1.ent
https://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/DTD/xhtml-symbol.ent
https://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/DTD/xhtml-special.ent

The license situation is not totally clear - the specification data:

https://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/

refers to the "software licensing" rules of the W3C:

https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-software-19980720

This would from my understand allow inclusion of the files, the entity files however contain this part:

<!-- Portions © International Organization for Standardization 1986:
{{      Permission to copy in any form is granted for use with}}
{{      conforming SGML systems and applications as defined in}}
{{      ISO 8879, provided this notice is included in all copies.}}
{{ -->}}

What is needed is clarification, if this supersedes the W3C general licensing information. If it does not supersede the W3C license info, then the files can be distributed/integrated following the legal faq, category-a:

https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-a

If not, how can the files be integrated.

The files are an essential part, to be able to process SGML+XML files holding HTML compatible data and are needed at multiple points inside netbeans, so they can't be easily removed.

Issue Links

• blocks: NETBEANS-853 IP CLEARANCE: ISO-8879-SGML license