[OpenID board] Revised local chapters policy

Dick Hardt dick at sxip.com
Thu May 8 05:48:23 UTC 2008


Hi Nat

Not sure the issue I raised is addressed below. Clearly there are a  
number of tasks to be taken care of at the national level. My question  
is how does the OIDF decide who which chapter will be the national  
chapter if more then one group wants to be the national chapter? First  
come first served? What if others in that nation are not happy with  
what the OIDF anointed national chapter is doing?

A key tenant of open source communities is the ability to fork. Not  
that anyone wants a fork, but the right to fork means that a community  
can split up and go its separate ways. The rest of the local chapter  
model let's a chapter fork if people want to accomplish different goals.

Suggestions on how to deal with those issues?

-- Dick

On 8-May-08, at 7:14 AM, Nat Sakimura wrote:

> 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] On  
>> Behalf Of Dick Hardt
>> Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 9:28 PM
>> To: 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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