| Document #: |
ISO/IEC/JTC1/SC22/WG21/P3339R0 |
| Date: |
2024-06-23 |
| Audience: |
WG21 |
| Authors: |
René Ferdinand Rivera Morell, Jayesh Badwaik |
| Reply-to: | |
| Copyright: |
Copyright 2024 René Ferdinand Rivera Morell, Jayesh Badwaik, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) |
1. Abstract
In this paper, we advocate for the C++ Ecosystem IS (EcoIS) to adopt a CC-BY license for the development and publication of the standard in order to allow for seamless use of the standard by the community and to facilitate community contributions back to the standard. We outline the proposals and explain how it fits within the current copyright policy of the ISO.
3. Motivation
EcoIS aims to facilitate the interoperation of tools and systems that implement, and interface with, the C++ International Standard (ISO/IEC 14882). The ecosystem of tools and systems is quite diverse and evolving swiftly in response to evolving technologies and user needs. Furthermore, a significant portion of the tools and systems are developed by loosely formed communities of developers across different countries and companies.
In order for the EcoIS to be effective, it must be able to incorporate the ideas and experiences of the community in a timely manner without excessive overhead. In particular, the community should be able to contribute to the EcoIS and be able to then use EcoIS in their own ecosystems with as little friction as possible.
The CC-BY license, created by the Creative Commons organization, allows one to share and adapt licensed material as long as appropriate credit is given. Such a license would allow the EcoIS to be developed and published in a way that is open and free to use by the community. With such a license, the community will be able to use the standard in their own tools and systems, and be able to contribute back to the standard in a seamless manner.
4. Proposal
Our proposal is to develop the EcoIS from individually copyrighted content with a license that allows for unfettered use by ISO for development and commercial use. Specifically it would be that:
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Individual Pnnnn papers would be copyrighted by the authors and licensed under the "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License" (CC-BY-4.0). [1]
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The resulting EcoIS Nnnnn draft paper and published International Standard would be copyrighted by the collection of authors and ISO/IEC.
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The resulting EcoIS Nnnnn draft paper and published International Standard would be licensed under CC-BY-4.0 and include required attribution.
5. ISO and Copyright
In this section, we justify the proposal under the current copyright policy of the ISO. The main aspects of copyright policy that one must consider when working on an ISO standard are outlined in Declaration for participants in ISO activities [2] and in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1 [3] which outlines the copyright policy for anyone involved in the ISO standardization process.
The complete text of the section on copyright from Declaration for participants in ISO activities [2] is reproduced here for the reader’s benefit, with the key parts underlined:
I. Copyright
You may participate in drafting ISO and ISO/IEC standards and you may submit content to the ISO and ISO/IEC standards development process. By participating in the ISO standards development process you get access to all kinds of information filed during this process such as standards and their drafts, content, etc. Content can be any kind of content submitted in the standards development process, such as publications, documents, text, figures, images, software, etc., to be considered for inclusion in ISO and ISO/IEC standards. You agree that:
1) The full copyright in all ISO standards and their drafts shall be owned by ISO. In the case of ISO/IEC standards, such ownership shall be held jointly by ISO and IEC.
2) Content, such as publications, documents, text, figures, images or other content that you submit to the ISO or ISO/IEC standards development process may be copyright protected. Copyright in such content remains with the initial copyright owner. If you offer such content, you undertake to declare this to ISO or ISO/IEC, identify the name of the copyright holder and assist ISO or ISO/IEC in obtaining appropriate permission to i) share the content in the standards development process, ii) to publish the content, or parts thereof, in original or modified form in ISO or ISO/IEC standards and iii) to exploit the content as part of an ISO or ISO/IEC standard according to ISO and IEC practice. If you or the organization you are representing own/s the copyright in the content, such permission is implicitly granted to ISO or ISO/IEC, upon submission of the content to the standards development process. More details about the scope of the above permission are available at connect.iso.org/x/SYBGAQ.
3) You agree to respect copyright in the standards, draft standards, and content of others submitted to the standards development process. You are allowed to share the standards and drafts thereof within the standards development process according to ISO’s copyright policy, POCOSA. POCOSA does not permit you to post standards and drafts thereof on the Internet for free public access.
4) Participation in the drafting of the standards, and content to the standards development process, are provided without any payment by ISO or IEC to you or any third party.
5) Full copyright includes but is not limited to the exclusive right of reproduction, distribution, making available to the public, translation, adaptation, in any existing or future electronic or printed format, for the entire term of copyright protection.
Let’s break down the underlying text to understand the implications of the copyright policy for the EcoIS.
1) The full copyright in all ISO standards and their drafts shall be owned by ISO. In the case of ISO/IEC standards, such ownership shall be held jointly by ISO and IEC.
The sentence asserts that the full copyright for ISO standards is held by ISO. And in the case of joint standards, the copyright is held jointly by ISO and IEC.
In preparation for the arguments that follow, we note that it is not unusual in the copyright law for the copyright holder to hold full copyright to only the complete work, while the individual contributors can still hold a copyright to their individual parts. In particular, it is possible for a document containing the entire text of the EcoIS standard to be copyrighted by the collection of authors, while the actual standard, as published, is copyrighted by ISO.
Content, such as publications, documents, text, figures, images or other content that you submit to the ISO or ISO/IEC standards development process may be copyright protected.
The sentence provides the context under which the rest of the paragraph is supposed to be applied. The sentence recognizes that parts, or even entirety, of the content used for ISO standards can have an existing copyright. For example, the copyright for such content could be held by an external standards organization or by an individual person.
Copyright in such content remains with the initial copyright owner.
The declaration asserts that, in such cases, the copyright remains with the original copyright holder. Such an assertion is in line with the observation made in a previous statement, that even though the ISO holds the full copyright to the complete work, the individual contributors can still hold a copyright to their individual contributions.
The assertion is further in line with the understood International Law that copyright is not automatically transferred.
If you offer such content, you undertake to declare this to ISO or ISO/IEC, identify the name of the copyright holder and assist ISO or ISO/IEC in obtaining appropriate permission to i) share the content in the standards development process, ii) to publish the content, or parts thereof, in original or modified form in ISO or ISO/IEC standards and iii) to exploit the content as part of an ISO or ISO/IEC standard according to ISO and IEC practice.
This next rather long sentence essentially is a permissive license grant to ISO that gives ISO the rights to use the contents in the manner specified above. We note we do not have to use this specific license grant, and that any license grant that allows ISO to use the content in the manner specified above is an acceptable license grant for the ISO. In particular, we note that CC-BY is such a license grant.
If you or the organization you are representing own/s the copyright in the content, such permission is implicitly granted to ISO or ISO/IEC, upon submission of the content to the standards development process.
The above makes it rather simple to give ISO the appropriate license grant by making it an implicit part of submitting content to ISO. We note that the application of CC-BY license is compatible with this implicit grant.
The ISO/IEC Directives [3] repeat the same information but in less legally formal terms. Here’s the relevant clause in that document with similarly underlined text to highlight the important paragraphs.
2.13 Copyright
The copyright for all drafts and International Standards and other publications belongs to ISO, IEC or ISO and IEC, respectively as represented by the Office of the CEO.
The content of, for example, an International Standard may originate from a number of sources, including existing national standards, articles published in scientific or trade journals, original research and development work, descriptions of commercialized products, etc. These sources may be subject to one or more rights.
In ISO and IEC, there is an understanding that original material contributed to becoming a part of an ISO, IEC or ISO/IEC publication can be copied and distributed within the ISO and/or IEC systems (as relevant) as part of the consensus building process, this being without prejudice to the rights of the original copyright owner to exploit the original text elsewhere. Where the material is already subject to copyright, the right should be granted to ISO and/or IEC to reproduce and circulate the material. This is frequently done without recourse to a written agreement or, at most, to a simple written statement of acceptance. Where contributors wish a formal signed agreement concerning the copyright of any submissions they make to ISO and/or IEC, such requests shall be addressed to ISO Central Secretariat or the IEC Secretariat, respectively.
Attention is drawn to the fact that the respective members of ISO and IEC have the right to adopt and re-publish any respective ISO and/or IEC document as their national standard. Similar forms of endorsement do or may exist (for example, with regional standardization organizations).
Part 1 Procedures for the technical work — Consolidated ISO Supplement — Procedures specific to ISO
As you may have noticed an important condition to this alternative copyright route to be available is for the paper, draft, etc to be originally copyrighted. Which currently, for all the EcoIS content is the case. Including this very paper that you are reading. See the following for such:
6. License
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.