[OpenID board] pay-to-play an issue?

[Johannes Ernst]

I believe the Foundation
  - MUST: govern the IP
  - MAY: do other stuff such as marketing.

Personally, I think it really should also do marketing, but if it  
won't hold the trademarks, say, who will?

Given this, the membership structure and revenue structure
  - MUST: be consistent with a good IP governance model
  - SHOULD: be consistent with other activities.


On Apr 5, 2007, at 9:43, Recordon, David wrote:

> Yes, I think Scott hit the nail on the head.  If the Foundation is
> purely a marketing organization then I see no problems with any  
> sort of
> pay-to-play type model.  If it manages anything community related
> (domains, trademark, IP) then I unequivocally feel any sort of
> pay-to-play model is the incorrect choice.
>
> I think the question before us is if we can balance these two  
> functions.
> Could the organization at the top be around the community and thus a
> merit based governing model and then have a working group around
> marketing with its own chair and council which is based partially upon
> who has contributed what?  Another model would be having some sort of
> financial oversight committee made up of those that donated to the
> Foundation.
>
> --David
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: board-bounces at openid.net [mailto:board-bounces at openid.net] On
> Behalf Of Scott Kveton
> Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 9:21 AM
> To: board at openid.net
> Subject: Re: [OpenID board] pay-to-play an issue?
>
>> I was reflecting on David's comments about having board membership
>> having  a pay-to-play aspect.
>
> Having just mentioned this in my last note, I'll follow-up as well.
>
>> If the Foundation controlled the specifications, I would be very
>> aligned with David on NOT having it pay to play -- but given the
>> charter of protecting IP and marketing -- essentially those paying  
>> are
>
>> those that have chosen to pool their marketing dollars, and  
>> coordinate
>
>> their efforts -- so it makes sense for those people to participate in
>> how those dollars are spent -- so it is a pay-to- market issue.
>>
>> With Apache, there is a clear marketing advantage to being listed  
>> with
>
>> Apache given their history and they essentially are selling pay-
>> to-market with a clear path on how marketing is done, and it is for
>> exposure of the company to the Apache community. Apache does not need
>> to do much marketing themselves these days -- where as OpenID does
>> need to get some clear messages out there, and so a pay-to-market
>> model for people to come on board makes tons of sense to me -- and
>> clearly is the model some people are looking for given some
>> conversations with some of the players.
>
> This is the core issue IMHO; is the OpenID Foundation a marketing  
> group
> or an organization for managing the mechanics of the OpenID community
> (namely IP, trademarks, etc)?  Or both?  In a perfect world, I'd  
> love to
> have the OpenID Foundation do lots of things, however, we've got to  
> get
> some key things done _now_.  We can always add marketing efforts  
> later.
>
> As for how Apache does this, I would say that they are very clear that
> when you "sponsor" Apache you get nothing in return that drives
> direction of the organization.  You get your name on a sponsors  
> page and
> that's about it.
> They are vehement about that (which I think is part of the reason for
> their
> success) as it makes it clear to the community and everyone  
> involved the
> roll of companies with Apache.
>
> Looking forward to more discussion on the call today,
>
> - Scott
>
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Johannes Ernst
NetMesh Inc.


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