Dave Winer ☕️Why did the W3C, which is part of MIT, a supposedly respected academic institution, take my name off the RSS 2.0 spec? They should explain this, fix it, and probably apologize.
BTW, the person who took my name off the spec broke the CC attribution license, which is directly below the attribution section of the doc, you can't miss it. here's a screen shot.
BTW, after noticing/remembering the CC/attribution license, it all becomes a lot clearer.
So I wrote it up on my blog as a first step.
Basil@davew so who on earth is the RSS advisory board? And have they also done the same?
mirabilos@davew copies are good though; your hoster may not go away but you don’t know that for sure; they may change URL schemes; when you leave that university they’ll most likely delete your site; more places means more visibility
they must fix the licence violation of course
Please. That’s what archive.org is for.
And the “hoster” is Harvard University, which is quite a bit older than the W3C.
And the spec has been there for over 20 years!
@davew archive.org is great but not discoverable, nor updatable
Chris Murphy@davew Not part of MIT anymore. https://www.w3.org/2023/01/pressrelease-w3c-le-launched.html.en
since you're part of mit maybe you can help fix this.
@davew Think you’d want someone part of the W3C.
Andreas Kuckartz@davew The W3C is no longer part of MIT. See https://www.w3.org/blog/news/archives/9823
yes i heard that. i still think you have to respect creative commons attribution licenses. that was one of the first such licensed documents.
if you work at the w3c please ask them to just point to the spec. that's what would be weblike and respectful.
https://cyber.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html
scroll to the bottom to see authorship credits and the cc license.
@davew I do not work at the W3C.
Maybe @koalie can help.
BTW: A relaunch of the website is scheduled for tomorrow:
https://status.w3.org/incidents/t7dg7v8kjh20
Coralie Mercier (W3C)@andreas_kuckartz thanks for drawing my attention to this.
Hi @davew it looks like the license is respected and that the documents this particular document draws from do not credit individuals either. I'm happy to help fix any error but I'm not finding where the error(s) is/are.
Hi @davew it looks like the license is respected and that the documents this particular document draws from do not credit individuals either. I'm happy to help fix any error but I'm not finding where the error(s) is/are.
@davew I think the issue is that the version hosted on the W3C site draws from versions hosted on https://www.rssboard.org/ which are different from https://cyber.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html
I am a former member of W3C, I was also a fellow at Berkman when that doc was published. That is my writing you're hosting on the W3C site, it's obvious, and my name and copyright have been removed. I'm handling this according to the process outlined by the CC (link below). I don't want to get drawn into your relationship with the group you mentioned. ;-)
Please just fix this and let me get back to my work on making the web work better. Thanks.
What to Do if Your CC-Licensed Work is Misused - Creative Commons
The CC licenses are designed to make sharing simple and place minimal requirements on reusers who want to be able to use creative works. However, sometimes reusers still misuse CC-licensed works, either intentionally or by mistake, and as a licensor, there are several things you can do about it. Before you take action: Before you…
@davew I'm happy to help fix this, I'm not trying to be difficult :) Having just tuned to this, my train of thoughts was that if the author(s) of our page chose to compile from pages from this group (with which we have no relationship otherwise) instead of original pages, there must have been a good reason. Anyway, I'll have a look ASAP.
thank you. please let me know if i can help. my email address is [email protected].
Rogers Cadenhead@koalie @davew I'm Rogers Cadenhead, the chairman of the RSS Advisory Board.
What the W3C is doing is correct. It is republishing our copy of the RSS specification under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike license and using our preferred authorship credit: RSS Advisory Board with a link to https://www.rssboard.org/.
The RSS Advisory Board has published the RSS 2.0 specification for 20 years. We've always made it available under that Creative Commons license.
AJ Ianozi@rcade @koalie @davew I'm not affiliated with Dave or W3C, but after reading some context on HN I opened up an Issue on the github repo for this, linking the PR where a similar copyright to the original document was removed: https://github.com/w3c/feedvalidator/issues/106
@aj @koalie @davew The version of the RSS 2.0 specification that had "© Copyright 1997-2002 UserLand Software. All Rights Reserved" was from 2002 and not under a CC license.
There have been 11 versions published since then under a CC license, as described here:
https://www.rssboard.org/rss-history
The W3C is following the license correctly.
@rcade @koalie @davew So W3C is attributing but is rssboard is attributing incorrectly?
I only say that because I did a diff between Dave's original page and the current "RSS 2.0 (version 2.0.11)" and there's still a 93% match. According to CC license:
"If supplied, you must provide the name of the creator and attribution parties, a copyright notice, a license notice, a disclaimer notice, and a link to the material." but no link/name.
"2.0.1-rv-6" is the last version to credit Dave by name.
Bruce Elrick@rcade @aj @koalie @davew
Interesting. Your own website retains the authorship attribution explicitly under CC for Dave all the way up to 2.0.1-rv6 then jumps to 2.0.8 without attribution. Either you are claiming 2.0.8 is not derived from any of the 2.0.1 series or you are ignoring the attribution requirement. Or am I missing a possibility?
Interesting. Your own website retains the authorship attribution explicitly under CC for Dave all the way up to 2.0.1-rv6 then jumps to 2.0.8 without attribution. Either you are claiming 2.0.8 is not derived from any of the 2.0.1 series or you are ignoring the attribution requirement. Or am I missing a possibility?
Sorry, the version jump where attribution is dropped is between 2.0.1-rv-6
https://www.rssboard.org/rss-2-0-1-rv-6#licenseAndAuthorship
and 2.0.8 https://www.rssboard.org/rss-2-0-8#licenseAndAuthorship
Weird. It still lists the Berkman Center, heavily implying a continuous derivation.
The only explanation that isn't hinky is that Dave signed a contract waving his attribution right and forgot about it?
@virtuous_sloth @aj @koalie @davew The credit line changed in 2006 because Dave Winer did not want to be associated with the RSS Advisory Board or its publication of the specification. He had resigned from the board two years earlier and did not agree with the board's decision to continue operation.
DrewKime@rcade @virtuous_sloth @aj @koalie @davew
It sounds like you're interpreting "doesn't want to be associated with the organization" as "gives up copyright to his previous work". Is that accurate?
It sounds like you're interpreting "doesn't want to be associated with the organization" as "gives up copyright to his previous work". Is that accurate?
@drewkime @virtuous_sloth No. Everyone agrees the Berkman Center owns the copyright on the 2003 version released under CC BY-SA. The disagreement was over attribution on the current version.
Because Dave Winer has requested credit, the attribution has been changed on the RSS 2.0 Specification that we publish:
@virtuous_sloth I actually did a diff on the text based on the current spec and dave's original page, it's still a 93% match https://s.aj.immo/@aj/110574380370465827
AJ Ianozi (@[email protected])
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] So W3C is attributing but is rssboard is attributing incorrectly? I only say that because I did a diff between Dave's original page and the current "RSS 2.0 (version 2.0.11)" and there's still a 93% match. According to CC license: "If supplied, you must provide the name of the creator and attribution parties, a copyright notice, a license notice, a disclaimer notice, and a link to the material." but no link/name. "2.0.1-rv-6" is the last version to credit Dave by name.
@aj
Cool, thanks! Plus the later version still names the Berkman Center, so my speculation about a clean room is just that.
Just a mysterious drop in attribution.
I've outlined the choices here.
https://github.com/w3c/feedvalidator/issues/106#issuecomment-1600820709
Please can we fix this *now* and get back to making the web work better. This is so humiliating.
SCSalon@davew I will have a look as soon as I can; I'm in the middle of other time-sensitive tasks this week and next.
It’s pretty simple, outlined here with screenshots and links.
@davew have you reached out to https://www.rssboard.org/ too? The docs referred to in https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html#aboutThisDocument are hosted there.
Any news regarding this issue ?
It’s on my blog.
In case anyone is interested, an issue was created:
Copyright concerns on from RSS 2.0 Specification page
https://github.com/w3c/feedvalidator/issues/106
Charles Johnson@davew I noticed recently that they changed some things in the RSS validator, but this is pretty shitty. Hopefully it’s an oversight.
George J Janczyn@davew I see your name listed in the "summary of RSS version history" linked to by the document you referenced.