For Approval: Open-Realty License

[Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M.]

I think most of these questions raise potentially interesting practical 
concerns, but I doubt that these questions identify  licensing or open 
source issues.

The requirement in paragraph 4 seems to simply require  a user to leave a 
preexisting HTML comment alone, rather than require  the creator of a 
derivative work to create an HTML statement of their own.

It's difficult for me to think of HTML statements used for the purpose for 
which HTML is intended as Not being technology neutral. But, perhaps, 
paragraph 4 could be improved to overcome the objections that seem to be 
raised by these questions by using text like the following:

"4. All websites using Open-Realty must leave the html commented line that 
reads or displays the following text:
Open-Realty is distributed by Transparent Technologies and is licensed under 
the Open-Realty License."

The program itself could Display the HTML comment by default, and the 
license world permit those who prepare derivative works to edit the default 
HTML comment as lay as the displayed text was essentially the same 
regardless of whether HTML, JavaScript, XML, or anything else.

Rod

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alex Rousskov" <rousskov at measurement-factory.com>
To: "Ryan Bonham" <ryan at transparent-tech.com>; 
<license-discuss at opensource.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 6:55 PM
Subject: Re: For Approval: Open-Realty License


> On Tue, 2005/05/24 (MDT), <ryan at transparent-tech.com> wrote:
>
>> 4. All websites using Open-Realty must leave the html comment that reads 
>> “<!--Open-Realty is distributed by Transparent Technologies and is 
>> licensed under the Open-Realty License. See 
>> http://www.open-realty.org/oslicense.html for more information.-->” 
>> intact.
>
> Does the above requirement mean that if I use an Open-Realty
> derivative to build a web site, my web site has to use HTML pages?
> Can I use XHTML, XML, plain text, Java, flash, etc.? If I use alternative
> format, how can I comply with the requirement expressed in HTML-like
> format?
>
> Also, if I do use HTML or alike, will I need to add the above
> comment to every page on the site, just one page, front page?
>
> Can I deploy a 3rd party ICAP (www.i-cap.org) service in front
> of my web site that filters the above comment out of all my web
> site pages without altering Open Realty software? Would that
> violate your license?
>
> Does transalting the HTML comment into a different encoding
> violate the "must leave intact" rule? If no, would any encoding
> be acceptible? And if yes, would not restricting the encoding
> prohibit users from creating web sites that must use non-"ASCII"
> encoding?
>
> Finally, if I am using an Open-Realty derivative to build something
> other than a web site, can I ignore requirement #4? What is your
> definition of a web site then? Is an RSS server a web site?
>
> I wonder if it is possible to make the above advertising requirement
> technology nuetral and avoid all of these questions.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Alex.
> P.S. Please template your license, including the text of the
> advertising clause.
>