So, I've been wanting to build a Standard COBOL documentation website because I thought that would help people learn the language itself, independently from any compiler specific extensions or implementation but I'm a bit confused about the licensing on the COBOL Standard.

As far as I know, the ISO prohibits reproducing any parts of their standards for any purposes, BUT the COBOL Standard itself has an Acknowledgement section near the end of it that gives any organization permission to reproduce in whole or in part, the COBOL standard.

The thing that's confusing me is, which one is the correct one?

Am I prohibited from reproducing any parts of it (ISO licensing), or am I allowed to reproduce parts of it? (Standard Acknowledgement section)

Does anyone here know how that works, because as it stands right now the ISO licensing is contradicting the Standard's own licensing.

On Saturday, August 6, 2022 at 1:15:43 PM UTC-4, keit...@gmail.com wrote:
[snip]
> Does anyone here know how that works, because as it stands right now the ISO licensing is contradicting the Standard's own licensing.

Did you try asking for permission?

https://www.iso.org/privacy-and-copyright.html
---
COPYRIGHT

All content on ISO Online is copyright protected. The copyright is owned by ISO.
Any use of the content, including copying of it in whole or in part, for example to
another Internet site, is prohibited and would require written permission from ISO.

All ISO publications are also protected by copyright. The copyright ownership of ISO
is clearly indicated on every ISO publication. Any unauthorized use such as copying,
scanning or distribution is prohibited.

Requests for permission should be addressed to the ISO Central Secretariat or
directly through the ISO member in your country.
---

> Did you try asking for permission?
> ---
> COPYRIGHT

I tried, I sent them an email and they told me to ask individual members from the ISO.

"Any organization interested in reproducing the COBOL standard and specifications in whole or in part, using ideas from
this document as the basis for an instruction manual or for any other purpose, is free to do so. However, all such
organizations are requested to reproduce the following acknowledgment paragraphs in their entirety as part of the preface
to any such publication (any organization using a short passage from this document, such as in a book review, is
requested to mention "COBOL" in acknowledgment of the source, but need not quote the acknowledgment):

COBOL is an industry language and is not the property of any company or group of companies, or of any organization or
group of organizations."

This is what the standard says, it's from the Acknowledgment section, it completely contradicts the ISO copyright notice.

>> COBOL Standard:
"Any organization interested in reproducing the COBOL standard and specifications in whole or in part, using ideas from
this document as the basis for an instruction manual or for any other purpose, is free to do so."
<<

>> ISO Copyright:
"The copyright is owned by ISO. Any use of the content, including copying of it in whole or in part,
for example to another Internet site, is prohibited and would require written permission from ISO."
<<

This is the issue, they're contradicting each other.

On Saturday, August 6, 2022 at 4:45:28 PM UTC-4, keit...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Did you try asking for permission?
> > ---
> > COPYRIGHT
>
> I tried, I sent them an email and they told me to ask individual members from the ISO.

[snip]

There are three levels of documentation involved:

1. The COBOL standard.

2. The Language Reference Manual (LRM) for an
implementation.

3. Instruction material for that implementation.

Because the standard requires an implementation to
modify the standard in certain areas, such as, the
ACCEPT and DISPLAY statements and to describe the
data formats for COMP, PACKED-DECIMAL, etc., it is
far more common to use an LRM than the standard
as a basis for instruction material.

Furthermore, when implementors create their LRMs,
they are required, for conformance to the standard,
to copy large parts of the standard, particularly
the syntax and general rules, albeit modified.
Because the rules are modified to fit the
implementation, what they publish is not the
standard.

Therein lies the problem. You want "to build a
Standard COBOL documentation website because
[you think it] would help people learn the language
itself, independently from any compiler specific
extensions or implementation". To do that, you
would be copying much of the standard unmodified.
I am not a lawyer, but I am reasonably sure that
ISO would frown on that.

> Therein lies the problem. You want "to build a
> Standard COBOL documentation website because
> [you think it] would help people learn the language
> itself, independently from any compiler specific
> extensions or implementation". To do that, you
> would be copying much of the standard unmodified.
> I am not a lawyer, but I am reasonably sure that
> ISO would frown on that.

Hey Rick, I now realize that the Acknowledgment section of the standard
is basically a written permission to use and reproduce the content from the standard.

So basically I already have written permission to use parts of it for my documentation
website, it's the permission that the standard itself gives me as long as I include the
Acknowledgment section in my website as well.

"Any organization interested in reproducing the COBOL standard and specifications in
whole or in part, using ideas from this document as the basis for an instruction manual
or for any other purpose, is free to do so. However, all such organizations are requested
to reproduce the following acknowledgment paragraphs in their entirety as part of the preface
to any such publication"

I'm also working on my own COBOL compiler, but my implementation will be
closely following the standard specification without any third-party extensions.
This is why I'm no focused on the Standard COBOL documentation thingy.

Hello KTSnowy!

Saturday August 06 2022 21:45, KTSnowy wrote to All:

Let me make this easier for you :

Access any of the Cobol standard documents from ISO, such as the 1989:2014
or ISO/IEC 1989:202x (E) edition

Go to the start of the Index and go back 2 pages to the ACKNOWLEDGMENT
page.

There you will see the following and shown here verbatim :

[

Any organization interested in reproducing the COBOL standard and
specifications in whole or in part, using ideas from this document as the
basis for an instruction manual or for any other purpose, is free to do so.
However, all such organizations are requested to reproduce the following
acknowledgment paragraphs in their entirety as part of the preface to any
such publication (any organization using a short passage from this
document, such as in a book review, is requested to mention "COBOL" in
acknowledgment of the source, but need not quote the acknowledgment):

COBOL is an industry language and is not the property of any company or
group of companies, or of any organization or group of organizations.

No warranty, expressed or implied, is made by any contributor or by the
CODASYL COBOL Committee as to the accuracy and functioning of the
programming system and language. Moreover, no responsibility is assumed by
any contributor, or by the committee, in connection therewith.

The authors and copyright holders of the copyrighted materials used herein:

~~ FLOW-MATIC (trademark of Sperry Rand Corporation),
Programming for the 'UNIVAC (R) I and II, Data Automation Systems
copyrighted 1958,1959, by Sperry Rand Corporation;

~~ IBM Commercial Translator Form No F 28-8013, copyrighted 1959 by IBM;

~~ FACT, DSI 27A5260-2760, copyrighted 1960 by Minneapolis-Honeywell

have specifically authorized the use of this material in whole or in part,
in the COBOL specifications. Such authorization extends to the reproduction
and use of COBOL specifications in programming manuals or similar
publications.

]

Now accepting they cannot spell correctly acknowledgement

What part of these statements do you NOT understand.

While the Standard document has its own copyright as any created document
has from the authors some / most of its content is already subject to
copyright from the original authors and their agents via CODASYL and that
organisation was paid to create such by the U.S. Government via the U.S.
Navy to produce a conforming programming language that can be used by all
vendors of computer equipment that release copyright in order to use such
material without any restrictions.

The can be nothing in the Cobol content of the ISO document that can
override that legal declaration.

There again why on earth are you bothering with the Cobol standard that is
designed to be used by Cobol compiler developers and NOT Cobol Programmers.
The language is such that every compiler developer has to rewrite all
language descriptions so that Cobol programmers can understand it without
any ambiguous content that can be misconstrued. In other words - hard to
understand :)

If you are creating a training course, to join the many handreds out their
all ready I suggest you try and stick to a specific Cobol compiler and use
its Programming Language manual as a source for your subject matter.

The standard is the last document you want to use.

Vincent

>> Did you try asking for permission?
>> ---
>> COPYRIGHT

> I tried, I sent them an email and they told me to ask individual
> members from the ISO.

> "Any organization interested in reproducing the COBOL standard and
> specifications in whole or in part, using ideas from this document as
> the basis for an instruction manual or for any other purpose, is free
> to do so. However, all such organizations are requested to reproduce
> the following acknowledgment paragraphs in their entirety as part of
> the preface to any such publication (any organization using a short
> passage from this document, such as in a book review, is requested to
> mention "COBOL" in acknowledgment of the source, but need not quote
> the acknowledgment):

> COBOL is an industry language and is not the property of any company
> or group of companies, or of any organization or group of
> organizations."

> This is what the standard says, it's from the Acknowledgment section,
> it completely contradicts the ISO copyright notice.

>>> COBOL Standard:
> "Any organization interested in reproducing the COBOL standard and
> specifications in whole or in part, using ideas from this document as
> the basis for an instruction manual or for any other purpose, is free
> to do so." <<

>>> ISO Copyright:
> "The copyright is owned by ISO. Any use of the content, including
> copying of it in whole or in part, for example to another Internet
> site, is prohibited and would require written permission from ISO." <<

> This is the issue, they're contradicting each other.

Vincent