[Odrl-version2] Fwd: ODRL Version 2 Requirements

[Renato Iannella]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Stephen Downes <stephen at downes.ca>
Date: 23 November 2004 14:38:09 GMT+10:00
To: odrl-version2 at odrl.net
Subject: ODRL Version 2 Requirements


I'm very sorry for having taken so long to respond - I have been so
busy...

I have quickly reviewed the first draft of the requirements document; my
intention is to provide detailed comments later, but my first
impressions are favorable.

The 'wildcard' nor 'not' requirement wasn't my suggestion, but at the
meeting I expressed support for the idea. This I believe was captured
well in the requirements document, allowing users to toggle between
'everything not specified is prohibited, with the following being
allowed' and 'everything not specified is allowed, with the following
being prohibited'

The major thing I was proposing at the meeting, which I do believe was
also captured by the requirements, was the ability to create what I have
called a rights 'model' where can apply to one or more separate 
resources.

In this respect, it may interest you to read of the OAI rights
expression proposal just released. Please see
http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/guidelines-rights.htm

I draw your attention exspecially to this: "A rights expression can be
associated with the metadata by including an *optional* |<rights>|
package in an |<about>| container. This specification defines an XML
schema to which such |<rights>| packages *must* conform. The schema
allows for actual rights expressions to be specified in-line within a
|<rights>| package, or by-reference via a URL of a network-accessible
rights expression."

It is the 'by-reference' mechanism that the rights model is intended to
support, so that it is not necessary to have a separate rights
expression for each resource.

I also noted in the requirements the recommendation that the
specification be modular, or in other words, have a simple and
easy-to-apply core with the capacity for accepting extensions. I believe
that simplicity will be important to encouraging adoption, and thus I
would strongly support this.

-- 
__________________________________________________________________

Stephen Downes ~ Senior Researcher ~ E-Learning Research Group
National Research Council Canada ~ Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada
http://www.downes.ca  ~  stephen at downes.ca
__________________________________________________________________