Design: License Field in Binary Format?

Created on 8 Mar 2017 · 8Comments · Source: WebAssembly/design

This issue has already been brought up two years ago, apparently at that time it was though to be a good idea but not for the MVP[1]. It seems that the solution was to use unknown sections in the binary format to add comments, is that correct?

Are there any plans to add a specific License-SourceURL section? I think it would be very useful, since web pages are downloaded on demand there is no easy way for the user to filter licenses as it is now. Such a field could enable the creation of filtering browser extensions.

"The web's usefulness and growth depends on its universality."[2], the lack of a easy license filtering could impose legal restrictions on certain users. For example certain software could have restrictions on commercial use and be accessed by a uninformed employee. Such scenario could lead to serious legal inconveniences. This already causes trouble and there have been attempts to solve this in JS, but none of them worked very well. It seems to me that the situation tends only to get worse as more an more software is moving to the web and even more will, shall WebAssembly succeed. More importantly, it will make the web friendly to any user, independent of their ideologies and beliefs.

[1]. https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/issues/208
[2]. https://www.w3.org/standards/

Source

badumt55

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We are engineers, not lawyers. We are not qualified to decide how a license should be legally specified in WebAssembly binaries or pages holding these binaries. That is currently left up to developer's own lawyers. Were we to standardize a license section it would have to be with the input of actual lawyers, anything less is posturing on our parts, we're likely to get it wrong and make things worse than currently perceived. If engineers employed by browser vendors were to specify licensing, developers could construe this as legal advice which is not a position we want to be in.

I suggest joining the W3C Community Group and involving lawyers to specify such information.

jfbastien on 8 Mar 2017

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All 8 comments

I don't see any particular reason why the binary format should specific particular (named) metadata sections. (Although technically we do specify one optional names section, I don't think we should open the flood gates just yet).

titzer on 8 Mar 2017

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license/source is a unique enough and fundamentally important concern that it doesn't deserve to be put off as part of hypothetical long lists of metadata sections. It makes sense to simply add specific metadata sections one at a time when the reasons for that particular one are compelling enough.

In short: yes, we should require a very high bar of justification before adding any specific metadata sections. license-source meets that high bar in my view.

wolftune on 8 Mar 2017

@titzer Normally I would agree with you and be for a language as simple as possible. The user can read the license when they run the installation program or download the files.

But this is not possible with the web. There is no installation. If wasm succeeds we will have more and more complex licenses on the web, for software such as CADs, PS and games. The language should be ready for the problems it will bring.
It's not opening the flood gates, it's a very specific and delicate situation that does and will bring much more headache in the future.

badumt55 on 8 Mar 2017

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I suggest joining the W3C Community Group and involving lawyers to specify such information.

jfbastien on 8 Mar 2017

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@jfbastien How do access the URL? I'm getting a 404.

badumt55 on 8 Mar 2017

@badumt55 https://www.w3.org/community/webassembly/ works for me.

RyanLamansky on 9 Mar 2017

@jfbastien I don't suggest that lawyers shouldn't be contacted but I don't think this proposal legally specifies anything. It would provide a standard mechanism for referencing license and source information in metadata. I guess lawyers could be able to confirm that though.