Simon Fell > Its just code > Copyright WSDL?

Tuesday, January 27, 2004

Sean & Scott have an interesting question about copyrighting a WSDL doc. As they point out, its just a document so it should be copyrightable (IANAL), many of the w3c schemas are copyrighted and I don't see it being any different to that. But what does that mean for the service its describing ? the copyright on the WSDL doesn't limit your ability to use the document, only WRT to copying / distributing it. I don't see how copyrighting the WSDL can have any affect on providing a service that implements that interface without some additional contract. Perhaps that's why the Microsoft.com download info WSDL was buried in an EULA package (for example) ?