3 ms·

Not to mention the fact that the Wikipedia article technically seems to violate the ISO copyright and could disappear at some point...

ThrustVectoring 6y ago
Facts cannot be copyrighted. Phrasing the description of YYYY-MM-DD strings and the like in a different way is likely sufficient to be freely available. Now, whether that's actually enough to convince the administrators to keep it up and risk the time and expense of a lawsuit is another matter entirely - in practice, anything that rightsholders threaten to sue over is probably banned, regardless of the actual legal status.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  > Facts cannot be copyrighted. Phrasing the description of YYYY-MM-DD strings and the like in a different way is likely sufficient to be freely available. To my knowledge, wholesale 'rephrasings' of standards documents have never been undertaken, even where royalty-free access to a document is in relatively high demand, such as with the C standard. StackOverflow ends up being the substitute for the standards document. As well as being a lot of work, it would open the door to small inaccuracies. A lot of work goes into 'laywering' the exact phrasing of such documents.
  - jfim 6y ago
    > To my knowledge, wholesale 'rephrasings' of standards documents have never been undertaken, even where royalty-free access to a document is in relatively high demand, such as with the C standard. No, they have. As a specific example, ETSI TS 102 221 contains enough of ISO/IEC 7816-2, 7816-3, and 7816-4 that one can implement a compatible device.
    - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
      Interesting, thanks. Do ETSI do this in the name of making the ISO standard freely accessible, or is it done for some other reason?
      - jfim 6y ago
        No, from what I understand it's done to standardize a lot of telecom stuff across Europe. I think they're somehow related to the GSM, but I haven't been in the telecom industry in well over a decade so my memory is fuzzy there.

ThrustVectoring 6y ago

Facts cannot be copyrighted. Phrasing the description of YYYY-MM-DD strings and the like in a different way is likely sufficient to be freely available. Now, whether that's actually enough to convince the administrators to keep it up and risk the time and expense of a lawsuit is another matter entirely - in practice, anything that rightsholders threaten to sue over is probably banned, regardless of the actual legal status.

MaxBarraclough 6y ago
> Facts cannot be copyrighted. Phrasing the description of YYYY-MM-DD strings and the like in a different way is likely sufficient to be freely available. To my knowledge, wholesale 'rephrasings' of standards documents have never been undertaken, even where royalty-free access to a document is in relatively high demand, such as with the C standard. StackOverflow ends up being the substitute for the standards document. As well as being a lot of work, it would open the door to small inaccuracies. A lot of work goes into 'laywering' the exact phrasing of such documents.
- jfim 6y ago
  > To my knowledge, wholesale 'rephrasings' of standards documents have never been undertaken, even where royalty-free access to a document is in relatively high demand, such as with the C standard. No, they have. As a specific example, ETSI TS 102 221 contains enough of ISO/IEC 7816-2, 7816-3, and 7816-4 that one can implement a compatible device.
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    Interesting, thanks. Do ETSI do this in the name of making the ISO standard freely accessible, or is it done for some other reason?
    - jfim 6y ago
      No, from what I understand it's done to standardize a lot of telecom stuff across Europe. I think they're somehow related to the GSM, but I haven't been in the telecom industry in well over a decade so my memory is fuzzy there.