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RE: Copyrighting schemas, Hailstorm (strayed a bit)

• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• To: David Brownell <david-b@p...>
• Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 14:15:03 -0500

And that practice is almost guaranteed to increase. 
As soon as URIs became namespace IDs, the land rush 
was predictable.  It will get worse. 

Are we choosing to be Humpty Dumpty, or are we 
the king's troops noticing the large number 
of precariously balanced eggs?  The wall was 
put there to mark a territory and now eggs 
balanced on it fall on one of two sides.  
The context redefined is the natural outcome 
of convenient applications.  Just as the WWW 
meisters find it convenient to define a 
locator protocol to be used as a namespace 
identifier, those on the other side of the 
wall find it convenient to use it to uniquely 
label proprietary content and justify that 
by saying that the only way the schema can be 
safely maintained is if the authoritative copy 
is found at the located noted.  They choose to 
apply the string for BOTH roles: SYSTEM ID, and 
PUBLIC ID because they can it neatly enables 
them to lay claim both to the public definition 
and part of the system.

Because it works, it becomes practiced.  Once 
practiced, it becomes acceptable, then canon.

Humpty Dumpty wasn't wrong.  Just authoritative. 
The outcome of the fall is always the same.

Len 
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: David Brownell [mailto:david-b@p...]
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 1:56 PM
To: Bullard, Claude L (Len)
Cc: Xml-Dev (E-mail)
Subject: Re: Copyrighting schemas, Hailstorm (strayed a bit)


> The context is the browser and web user not privy 
> to the abstractions of the specification.

Heh ... for some of us, that context is virtually never a
browser.  I could suspect you of virulently agreeing
with me; your examples so consistently prove what I'm
saying (even presented as disproofs :) that meaning is
contextual.

> >I have the feeling Alice must have had when talking to
> >Humpty Dumpty.  Sure, go ahead and assert whatever
> >you want.  These issues haven't been litigated, and are
> >unresolved (THAT was the original issue) except that
> >Internet standards disagree with what you asserted.
> 
> *Private consortia cannot make law*.  You are falling 
> off the wall and the king's men can put you together 
> again, but perhaps they won't.  By choosing to sit 
> on the wall, you assumed the risk.

I was making the analogy that _you_ chose the role of
Humpty Dumpty ... :)  If there are standards in this area,
they disagree with what you've said.  But none of them
are legal standards, and I certainly hope that if any such
standards evolve, they'll respect common sense.

There's one case that may become relevant ... Ford
vs 2600 magazine.  Ford doesn't seem to like the fact
that URLs can be redirected.  They want control over
at least some uses of the www.ford.com URL ... much
in the same way it's implied that some Microsoft URIs
may be subject to control.  (Significant differences in
detail though...)

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