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W3C | Submissions

Submission request to W3C (W3C Staff Comment)


We, W3C members Adobe Systems Incorporated, CNET Incorporated, Microsoft Corporation, Sun Microsystems Inc., and Vignette Corporation, hereby submit to the Consortium the following specification comprising the document(s) linked below:

  1. The Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol

which collectively are referred to as "the submission". We request the submission be known as the "ICE" submission.

Abstract

This document describes the Information and Content Exchange protocol for use by content syndicators and their subscribers. The ICE protocol defines the roles and responsibilities of syndicators and subscribers, defines the format and method of content exchange, and provides support for management and control of syndication relationships. We expect ICE to be useful in automating content exchange and reuse, both in traditional publishing contexts and in business-to-business relationships.

ICE is built as an application of XML, and also makes use of HTTP. ICE can leverage a number of other emerging W3C efforts.

Intellectual property rights

Declaration of Adobe, Microsoft, and Vignette

Adobe Systems Incorporated, Microsoft Corporation, and Vignette Corporation, (The Submitters) agree to grant, and do grant the W3C, a nonexclusive, royalty-free license under any copyrights in this contribution to reproduce, distribute, display publicly and prepare derivative works that are based on or incorporate all or parts of the contribution and to authorize others to do so. The Submitters also grant W3C the right, without cost, to freely implement and use the technology described in this contribution in W3C work. The Submitters agree that, upon adoption of this contribution as a W3C Recommendation, any W3C member will be able to obtain a license from the Submitters to implement and use the ideas described in this contribution for the purposes of supporting the W3C Recommendation on a royalty-free basis. One condition of this license shall be the party's agreement to not assert patent rights against the Submitters and other companies for their implementation of the W3C Recommendation. The Submitters expressly reserve all other rights they may have in the material and subject matter of this contribution.

The Submitters expressly disclaim any and all warranties regarding this contribution including any warranty that this contribution does not violate the rights of others or is fit for a particular purpose.

Declaration of Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Sun Microsystems Inc. agrees to grant, and does grant the W3C, a nonexclusive, royalty-free license under any of Sun's copyrights in this contribution to reproduce, distribute, display publicly and prepare derivative works that are based on or incorporate all or parts of the contribution and to authorize others to do so.

Sun also agrees to grant to W3C, for the limited purpose of considering whether to adopt this contribution as a W3C Recommendation, a royalty-free license under Sun's patents to implement and use the ideas described in this contribution. Upon adoption of this contribution as a W3C Recommendation, Sun further agrees to license to W3C, its members and any other party seeking to implement or use the ideas described in this contribution a license on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms to any Sun patents that would necessarily be infringed by such implementation or use. Sun expressly reserves all other rights they may have in the material and subject matter of this contribution.

Sun expressly disclaims any and all warranties regarding this contribution including any warranty that this contribution does not violate the rights of others or is fit for a particular purpose.

Declaration of CNET, Incorporated

CNET Incorporated agrees to grant, and does grant the W3C, a nonexclusive, royalty-free license under any copyrights in this contribution to reproduce, distribute, display publicly and prepare derivative works that are based on or incorporate all or parts of the contribution and to authorize others to do so. CNET also grants W3C the right, without cost, to freely implement and use the technology described in this contribution in W3C work. CNET agrees that, upon adoption of this contribution as a W3C Recommendation, any W3C member will be able to obtain a license from CNET to implement and use on a royalty-free basis the ideas described in this contribution for the purposes of supporting the W3C Recommendation. One condition of this license shall be the licensee's agreement to not assert patent rights against CNET and other companies for their implementation of the W3C Recommendation. CNET expressly reserves all other rights they may have in the material and subject matter of this contribution.

CNET expressly disclaims any and all warranties regarding this contribution including any warranty that this contribution does not violate the rights of others or is fit for a particular purpose.

Names

The following are registered marks referred to in this submission: Adobe, CNET, Microsoft, Sun, Sun Microsystems, and Vignette are either registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective companies in the United States and/or other countries. All other product names are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of their respective owners.

Specification

The submission may be distributed within the membership of the W3C free of any fee. The submission may be distributed publicly free of any fee.

Implementation

No licensed technologies are required to implement ICE. An XML parser, preferably a validating parser, is required; there are many sources of XML parsing technology, including free parsers.

Suggested action

We suggest that the Consortium publish this proposal as is, and work on identified open and future issues both within existing working groups and in conjunction with the ICE authoring team as appropriate. The ICE authoring team has identified two areas of special interest for future work:

  1. How to define a constraints mechanism that will meet the needs of ICE and possibly leverage other emerging W3C schema efforts such as XML-Data, DCD, XSchema, etc.
  2. How to define a usage data model that will allow businesses to exchange information about how the syndicated content is being used.

Resources

To help with this work, Vignette will provide resources to be part of any appropriate working groups and can provide one employee part-time as a specification editor.

Change control

Should any changes be required to the document, we would expect future versions to be produced either by W3C process or by the ICE authoring group.

Contact

Inquiries from the public or press about this submission should be directed to:

Brad Husick, Vignette, brad@vignette.com, 650.378.1333

or see additional names below.

Submitted

this 13th day of October, 1998,

Steve Zilles, Adobe Systems Inc.

Kenneth Norton, CNET

Thomas Reardon, Microsoft

Gary Adams, Sun Microsystems

Neil Webber, Vignette Corporation