[SCL] Re: some explanation

[John F. Sowa]

Folks,

The history of how this project evolved goes
back to the Knowledge Sharing effort, which
brought some of us together at Pajaro Dunes
in March of 1991.  In January of 1992, there
was a meeting of the X3H4 committee, where
Mike Genesereth and I began the long march
toward developing ANSI standards for KIF
and CGs.

Both Mike and I can be blamed for the delays
in getting these things through, since the
Z standard was started at the same January
meeting in a room across the hall from the
one where Mike and I were meeting.  The Z
gang got the final draft of their ISO
standard approved in 2002.

We can blame some, but certainly not all,
of the delay on reorgs and disorgs.  The X3H4
project(s) were inherited by the X3T2 committee,
which was later merged with the X3L8 committee,
which has become NCITS L8, which is now in
charge of the ISO effort.

Whether these projects are called "the same"
or "different" depends on the individuating
criteria for projects.  That is a historical
and metaphysical issue that is probably of
very little interest to anyone at ISO or W3C.

I firmly believe that all of us will benefit
from having a single semantic foundation that
is blessed and approved by both ISO and W3C.
My feeling is that there will undoubtedly be
two separate documents, but that the technical
content of the two should be identical.

As far as copyrights go, there is no problem
about having common material that is shared
between both the ISO and the W3C documents.

ISO's requirements are only that all authors
must give ISO a free and unencumbered license
to use the material in any way they see fit,
but it does not have to be an exclusive
license.  Authors are free to contribute
any or all of their material to both ISO and
to W3C, which can incorporate it into separate
documents, which they can reproduce and
distribute as they see fit.

John