Reading the second page of the opengl version 4.0 specifications www.opengl.org, I thought something was strange: the first paragraph state
(…) You may use this specification for implementing the functionality therein, without altering or removing any trademark, copyright or other notice from the specification, but the receipt or possession of this specification does not convey any rights to reproduce, disclose, or distribute its contents, or to manufacture, use, or sell anything that it may describe, in whole or in part. (…)
Emphasis added by me. Notice the first part of the bold text. It clearly states that I (or anyone else) am allowed to implemented the functionality, but the rest of the bold text clearly state that I am not allowed to manufacture anything that it describes — implementing the functionality is manufacturing what the specifications describe. So which is it? Am I allowed to implement it or not? This may seem like a trivial issues — of course I am allowed to! — but the problem is that someone might, some day, decide that anyone who has implemented OpenGL, in full or in part, is violating copyright and those people (like, for example, one of the Khronos group’s voting member who would have interests in shutting down OpenGL) might start suing them for (imaginary) damages.
The Khronos group should change this ASAP to state the obvious: the document itself is protected by copyright, but you can use it to implement OpenGL 4.0 if you want to without violating any copyrights.
