Network Working Group J. Snell
Internet-Draft August 15, 2006
Expires: February 16, 2007
Atom License Extension
draft-snell-atompub-feed-license-07.txt
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).
Abstract
This memo defines an extension to the Atom Syndication Format for
associating licenses with Atom feeds and entries.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. The "license" link relation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Appendix A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 8
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1. Introduction
This document defines how Atom feed publishers can associate licenses
with the metadata of a feed or entry. Licenses associated using
these mechanisms might be machine readable and are intended to
communicate the various rights and obligations others may have with
regards to the associated Atom Feed or Entry.
1.1. Notational Conventions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14, [RFC2119].
1.2. Terminology
The term "link relation" used in this specification refers to the
value of the Atom link elements "rel" attribute as defined in section
4.2.7.2 of [RFC4287].
The term "entry content" refers to the value of the content element
as defined in section 4.13 of [RFC4287] and to any resources
identified by the content element "src" attribute.
For feed elements, the term "metadata" refers to the values and
attributes of the author, category, contributor, generator, icon, id,
link, logo, rights, subtitle, title, and updated elements (as defined
by [RFC4287]), as well as all extension elements appearing as
children of the feed element and all elements appearing as children
of the author and contributor elements. It also includes the
selection and arrangement of entry elements contained by the feed but
not the metadata or content of the entries themselves.
For entry elements, "metadata" refers to the values and attributes of
the author, category, content, contributor, id, link, published,
rights, source, summary, title, and updated elements, as well as all
extension elements appearing as children of the entry element and all
elements appearing as children of the author and contributor
elements.
2. The "license" link relation
The "license" link relation associates a license with a feed or
entry.
Feed and entry elements MAY contain any number of "license" link
relations but MUST NOT contain more than one with the same
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combination of href and type attribute values. The IRI specified by
the link's 'href' attribute SHOULD be dereferenceable to return a
representation of the license. The license representation MAY be
machine readable.
Multiple "license" link relations specifying different href attribute
values are are considered to be mutually exclusive alternatives. For
instance, if an entry specifies both a Creative Commons License and
the General Public License (GPL), the entry is considered to be
licensed as either Creative Commons OR GPL as opposed to Creative
Commons AND GPL.
If multiple license link relations are specified, each SHOULD contain
a title attribute specifying a human-readable label for the license.
Because entries contained within a feed may originate from other
sources, "license" link relations appearing within a feed apply to
the metadata of the containing feed element only and do not extend
over the metadata or content of the contained entries.
Entry content might include or reference material from other sources.
Licenses associated with an entry MUST NOT be assumed to cover such
material. Implementations cannot necessarily trust that publishers
have the right to license material claimed to be covered by any
associated license. Care should be taken when making decisions based
on the referenced license.
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2.1. Example
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
<id>http://www.example.com/myfeed</id>
<title>My Example Feed</title>
<updated>2005-07-28T12:00:00Z</updated>
<link href="http://www.example.com/myfeed" />
<link rel="license" type="application/rdf+xml"
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/rdf" />
<rights>
Copyright (c) 2005. Some rights reserved. This feed
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribute-NonCommercial
Use License. It contains material originally published by
Jane Smith at http://www.example.com/entries/1 under the
Creative Commons Attribute License.
</rights>
<author><name>James</name></author>
<entry>
<id>tag:entries.org,2005:1</td>
<title>Atom Powered Robots Run Amok</title>
<updated>2005-06-28T12:00:00Z</updated>
<link href="http://www.example.org/entries/1" />
<summary>Atom Powered Robots Run Amok</summary>
<author><name>Jane Smith</name></author>
<link rel="license" type="text/html"
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/" />
</entry>
</feed>
3. Security Considerations
When "license" link relations are used in Atom documents, the
security considerations for handling links in Atom documents apply.
4. IANA Considerations
This specification defines one new Atom link relation type to be
registered in the IANA Registry of Link Relations as defined by
[RFC4287].
Attribute Value: license
Description: Specifies the IRI of a license associated with
the containing feed, entryor source element.
Expected display characteristics: None
Security considerations: When "license" link relations are used
in Atom documents, the security considerations for
handling links in Atom documents apply.
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5. References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC4287] Nottingham, M., Ed. and R. Sayre, Ed., "The Atom
Syndication Format", RFC 4287, December 2005.
Appendix A. Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the feedback from Mike Linksvayer,
Robin Cover, Lisa Dussealt, Bjorn Hohrmann, Frank Ellermann, and the
members of Atom Publishing Format and Protocol working group during
the development of this specification.
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Author's Address
James M Snell
Phone:
Email: jasnell@gmail.com
URI: http://www.snellspace.com
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Intellectual Property Statement
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Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
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Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). This document is subject
to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and
except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights.
Acknowledgment
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
Internet Society.
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