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From: news@haddock.ima.isc.com (overhead)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat
Subject: Re: ISO 639
Keywords: ISO, Copyright
Message-ID: <15927@haddock.ima.isc.com>
Date: 12 Feb 90 19:12:44 GMT
References: <3109@paperboy.OSF.ORG> <1091@tuminfo1.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de> <1938@pbhyg.PacBell.COM> <25D2EBD5.120@marob.masa.com>
Reply-To: jimm@shiner.UUCP (Jim McGrath)
Organization: Interactive Systems Co
Lines: 31

In article <25D2EBD5.120@marob.masa.com> cowan@marob.masa.com (John
Cowan) writes: 
#
#They are copyrighted for the same reason translations of the Bible are.
#If the documents were in the public domain, you could make arbitrary changes
#to them and then republish the resulting mutilated standard as "ISO nnn"
#and nothing could be done to stop you.
#
It is possible to copyright an item, and assign rights to copy and
distribute freely.  I have no objection to ISO protecting the text of
their documents from modification, but I would greatly prefer to see
them more freely available.  NIC, to the best of my knowledge, has had
no problems with unauthorized changes to the RFCs.
#
#Remember that public-domain doesn't just mean the right to make unlimited
#copies; it also means the right to make unlimited derivative works.  You can
#publish an edition of Shakespeare's sonnets (public domain) with
#every instance of "are" changed to "is", and call it "The Original
#Sonnets by W. Shakespeare". 
#
I'm not suggesting that ISO documents be put in the public domain.
What I want is for the documents to be freely available to any hacker
in the world that wants to do their own implementation.  Let the
marketplace decide on the utility of a particular implementation. 
#
#This state of affairs is obviously impossible for something called an
#"international standard".
#
Agreed!

Jim