XML DTD and open source licensing

[Nathan Kelley]

To OSI License Discussion subscribers,

> From: MAISONNY Benoit <Benoit.MAISONNY at eurocontrol.int>,

> Most OSI-certified licenses apply to "software". Does that include an 
> XML DTD?
>
> I noticed the W3C license makes broader provision by using the terms 
> "This W3C work (including software, documents, or other related 
> items)" and "SOFTWARE AND DOCUMENTATION" in the disclaimer.
>
> To give some context: we are tempted to use the BSD license on a work 
> that includes source code and a DTD. We want to allow anyone to modify 
> the DTD if they want, under the terms of the BSD license (or similar). 
> Note that a DTD could very well be distributed in source and binary 
> form.
>
> In doubt, we will probably modify the BSD license, which would prevent 
> us from using the OSI mark. And this is unfortunate, in my opinion.

Some licenses refer to all included works as the "source" when defining 
terms at the beginning, or within, the license. This means that the 
license can be applied to any work, regardless of whether it is 
actually source code or not, without changes. That would include your 
DTD.

Licenses such as BSD and MIT are more specific that they refer to 
software and its' source. To use one of those for a DTD you would need 
to make a minor change to the license so that it could be understood to 
cover the files that make up the DTD.

Now, there has been discussion about whether minor changes such as this 
should invalidate the OSI Certification status of a license; I don't 
know what the outcome of it was. Perhaps another subscriber could 
enlighten us.

Cheers, Nathan.

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