Note that, headline aside, this isn’t a “sky is falling” story.
Just an example of how the GPL interacts out there in the world
with a well-established body that has its own licensing practices
in place. Whether the GPL would be better for said organization or
not is something we’re sure someone has an opinion on:
“A recent discussion on www-dom-ts@w3.org highlights
ways in which the W3C’s model of collaborative development is quite
different from some popular open source models.While Curt Arnold was developing a set of XSLT transformations
as a framework for the test suite work (which is being done in
public), he concluded:“I’ve been working under an assumption of good faith and have
been making stuff available with no explicit copyright or terms of
use. However, I’m starting to get a little uncomfortable with my
personal exposure by doing this. By asserting a copyright and GPL,
I at least cover myself by providing a standard liability
disclaimer. I’m still free to donate the code to the W3C, when and
if desired, to be released under an appropriate license.”