This strikes me as somewhat irresponsible. Some GEDCOM files are huge. Are you suggesting that we just accept them as valid without any standards for verifiability? We also need to address the privacy issues. The copyright question may turn out to be a less critical problem.
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Benjamin Webb wrote:
To be honest, I don't really know either. I only really know from certain discussions on Wikipedia. The best thing to do, in my opinion, is to let people import GEDCOMs from anywhere until we get some sort of complaint, and then think about what we are going to do from there.
On 27/03/06, Robert Scott Horning robert_horning@netzero.net wrote:
Benjamin Webb wrote:
When you import a GEDCOM to the Rodovid database, the information is extracted and stored as wikipages, not as the GEDCOM, so the copyrightability of the GEDCOM doesn't matter.
Any patents or copyright claims on the GEDCOM file format itself is not really the point. This is an open international data format standard that has widespread support and usage from many geneological computer users, including many for profit and non-profit groups. Royalties have never been assessed for using the data format itself and likely won't be either. Trust me when I say that the internal politics of the LDS church would simply not allow formal royalties to be charged for it either, and there are geneological groups involved with the development of that data standard that have nothing to do with the LDS church either, although that is who has organized conferences and groups to discuss development of this standard.