[OpenID board] Revised local chapters policy

Mike Jones Michael.Jones at microsoft.com
Thu May 8 05:42:41 UTC 2008


Many of the activities you suggest are valuable, such as securing trademarks in the local jurisdiction, performing translations, and hosting lists in local languages.  I believe these issues deserve more discussion and probably should be part of a national chapters policy, which is complementary to the local chapters policy.

I believe we're at a good place with the local chapters policy and still in need of substantial discussion of any national chapters policy (which should occur in the working group, not on the full board alias).

For purposes of making progress tomorrow, I would still propose that we adopt the proposed changes to the local chapters policy and then consider a national policies policy separately.  Would you support that course of action and would it let OpenID Japan accept the local chapters policy?  I'd think that it would because you'd already (I believe) agreed to the text with no specifics about the national chapters, policy -- just a statement that the OIDF may designate chapters to be national chapters.

                                                Thanks again Nat,
                                                -- Mike

________________________________
From: Nat Sakimura [mailto:n-sakimura at nri.co.jp]
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 10:15 PM
To: Mike Jones
Cc: Snorri; board at openid.net
Subject: Re: [OpenID board] Revised local chapters policy

Hi Mike,

Below is from my original Chapter Policy Manuscript, which seems to be much too robust for acceptance.
However, it does contain such criterias: Specifically, National Chapters must fulfil III-2, III-3:

       III-2.       Intellectual Property

                The National Chapters are required to secure the fair use of trademarks and other intellectual property
                 in the jurisdiction for the OpenID Community with a commercially reasonable effort.
III-3.       Translation
                        i.       The National Chapters are required to provide the translation of then current OpenID Specifications and the IPR documents in the local language.
                      ii.       The National Chapters are required to assist the communication of the Local Chapter Members with the Working Groups by setting up a local language mailing list parallel to the OIDF Working Group mailing lists.

III-2 especially, requires a single entity to be doing this, since otherwise, it will result in a chaos. This probalby is the most important reason for having a single National Chapter.

Also, IMHO, a National chapter should conduct a preliminary survay of local patents for the possible infringement of those by OpenID specificatioin. This is a rather costly operation and best dealt at one entity for the economic reason. Probably, this should be added to III-2 as well.

Nat


Original text are as below:---
II.               Duties of a Local Chapter
1.        Intellectual Property
The chapters must agree that their activities will be for the purpose of supporting the adoptions and the usage of OpenID. They must agree that any intellectual property or trademarks developed or held by the local chapter must be available freely for the OpenID Community for the fair use.
2.        Activities
Each Local Chapter must engage in the following activities:
                        i.       Annual General Meeting
                      ii.       Annual Report Publishing
                    iii.       Web site which is enabled with OpenID Authentication.
3.       Autonomous Financing
The chapters must operate autonomously without any financial support from OIDF.
4.       Membership Management
Local Chapters must maintain the list of the Local Chapter Members.

III.           Obligations of a National Chapter
In addition to the above Local Chapters duties, National Chapters are required to fulfill the following obligations.
1.       Form
Although it is not required to be registered as a non-profit organization, a National Chapter must be a non-profit for its purpose.
2.       Intellectual Property
The National Chapters are required to secure the fair use of trademarks and other intellectual property in the jurisdiction for the OpenID Community with a commercially reasonable effort.
3.       Translation
                        i.       The National Chapters are required to provide the translation of then current OpenID Specifications and the IPR documents in the local language.
                      ii.       The National Chapters are required to assist the communication of the Local Chapter Members with the Working Groups by setting up a local language mailing list parallel to the OIDF Working Group mailing lists.


Mike Jones wrote:
Nat and Snorri, since you're the ones advocating OIDF having the concept of designated national chapters, I'm going to first ask you to take a stab at answering Dick's question.  I agree with him that having a designation but no criteria for the board to make that designation nor any definition of how the OIDF should treat a designated national chapter any differently than any other local chapter is a recipe for future problems.

Summarizing, I think the questions are:
  - What criteria will be used to decide which application is granted the national chapter if there is more then one applicant?
  - Does the OIDF treat designated national chapters any differently than other chapters, and if so, how?

                                                Thanks,
                                                -- Mike

________________________________
From: board-bounces at openid.net<mailto:board-bounces at openid.net> [mailto:board-bounces at openid.net] On Behalf Of Dick Hardt
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 9:28 PM
To: board at openid.net<mailto:board at openid.net>
Subject: Re: [OpenID board] Revised local chapters policy

12 - Territories
OIDF will recognize any proposed eligible Local Chapters, regardless of the geographic scope of the chapter, including chapters with overlapping territories and missions.  Chapters organized at the nation state level may apply to the OIDF to be recognized as the OIDF-designated national chapter.  OIDF will recognize at most one chapter as the designated national chapter in a nation-state at any time.


What criteria will be used to decide which application is granted the national chapter if there is more then one applicant?

If the national chapter leadership is lacking and another group wants to take over, how is that done?

These are very subjective / political criteria that I think would be best for the OIDF to stay out of if possible.

-- Dick





--

Nat Sakimura (=nat)

Nomura Research Institute, Ltd.

XDI.ORG Vice Chair
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