[OpenID board] IPR Policy and Process Proposal

[Gabe Wachob]

Johannes-

 

I just don't see how Microsoft or anyone else on their scale is going to
contribute without something much more rigorous in place than what we have
now. Verisign's participation has been great, but I don't think the IPR
issue with Verisign is completely clear to outside parties, or even me! 

 

You actually document some issues yourself, Johannes, in discussions late
last year. For example:

 

http://osdir.com/ml/web.openid.specs/2006-12/msg00036.html

 

What is too complicated in the current proposal? It's much lighter-weight
than any standards body I know of, and yet requires *no new behavior* of
most people participating now (those who don't care about ever asserting IPR
rights). It puts the onus of extra work on those who only want to commit to
a more specific set of licensing, as it should. Simple things simple,
complicated things more complicated. If don't care about protecting your IPR
w/r/t OpenID, then you do nothing. If you do care, then you have an extra
step to do. 

 

As for the language of the IPR policy itself, I actually think its fairly
straightforward - lawyers will have to gnaw on it of course (if we don't get
started on that asap, we'll never make IIW, to be honest). But I don't think
it's all that complicated compared to most IPR agreements I've seen. Compare
to W3C: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/  or OASIS:
http://www.oasis-open.org/who/intellectualproperty.php  or the IETF's (which
I think is getting an overhaul?): http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3979.txt 

 

We're not forming a standards body here, we're just trying to make the
environment "good enough" to attract a wider set of participants and
adopters. Both sides are going to have to work a little bit in a new way, I
think. To put a challenge to you, can you give examples of grassroots
communities outside formal SDO's adopting IPR policies that are both
acceptable to large IPR-holding organizations as contributors and as 3rd
party adopters? We should definitely be stealing their ideas rather than
coming up with our own, but I'm not finding it. 

 

In any case, I've added some notes on a workplan here:
http://openid.net/wiki/index.php/IPR_%26_Process_Work_Plan 

 

            -Gabe

 

 

 

  _____  

From: board-bounces at openid.net [mailto:board-bounces at openid.net] On Behalf
Of Johannes Ernst
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2007 12:25 PM
To: board at openid.net
Subject: Re: [OpenID board] IPR Policy and Process Proposal

 

This is quite complex. Is there a way to simplify and shorten substantially?

 

[I just read both policy proposal and process proposal, and in spite of
having read previous drafts and having an interest in the subject, I suspect
I'd have to spend several more hours to actually understand what all of this
means. The problem is not that I need to take the time, but that such a time
requirement will act as a rather effective barrier for new people to get
involved in OpenID or feeling comfortable about what they are getting
themselves into, something I'd like to avoid if can ...]

 

 

 

Johannes Ernst

NetMesh Inc.

 


 <http://netmesh.info/jernst> http://netmesh.info/jernst



 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openid.net/pipermail/openid-board/attachments/20070423/7d8a678a/attachment-0003.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 903 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.openid.net/pipermail/openid-board/attachments/20070423/7d8a678a/attachment-0006.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 973 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.openid.net/pipermail/openid-board/attachments/20070423/7d8a678a/attachment-0007.gif>