[OpenID board] Making statement that XML sources of the specs are unofficial

Nat Sakimura sakimura at gmail.com
Tue Aug 12 02:52:01 UTC 2014


Dear board members,

I have found out that the XML source code for our specifications are having
the following.

<?rfc ipr="full200902"> and <?rfc private="Final">

which indicates that the file follows IETF's IPR rather than OpenID
Foundation's, and it is a private note and not a public document.

As I found out, it was put there to satisfy the tool that we are using:
xml2rfc.

In the time of OpenID Authentication 2.0, it was using <?rfc
ipr="full3978">.

It is fine as long as these files are unofficial tool only, but there is no
indication of it as it stands now.

Further investigation lead me to find out that these XML files were not
recorded in official http://openid.net/specs/ folder before OpenID Connect.

In addition, I have found out that there is no link from the Connect specs
to the OpenID IPR Policy although there is a verbal mention of it in the
Copyright statement. The reference is not there so the readers cannot find
what it is.

This lead me to think that we probably need to take the following actions:


   1. Declare clearly in http://openid.net/specs/ that HTML files are
   authoritative and others are not.
   2. Remove all XML files from http://openid.net/specs/.
   3. Put explanatory note in the XML files that they are not official and
   ipr="..." and other tags are there just to satisfy the tools.
   4. Use ipr="none" instead of ipr="full200902" in the XML file.
   5. Put the link to the OpenID IPR Policy to the text "The OpenID
   Intellectual Property Rights policy"

My proposal for the XML Comment is as follows:

<!--NOTE on this XML File.
This XML file is a tool to produce the authoritative copy of OpenID
Foundation spec. The authoritative copy is the HTML, and the
corresponding XML source is not authoritative. The statement that
ipr="none" is here only to satisfy the tool. The IPR of this document
is OpenID IPR Policy found at
http://openid.net/ipr/OpenID_IPR_Policy_(Final_Clean_20071221).pdf and
governed by OpenID Process found at
http://openid.net/wordpress-content/uploads/2010/01/OpenID_Process_Document_December_2009_Final_Approved.pdf.
The directive private="..." is here only to satisfy the tool and
desired HTML output. This is a public OIDF document and not an
individual private memo as private="..." indicates. -->


This is supposed to be put in at the top of the file right after the
DOCTYPE declaration.

And my proposal for the /specs/ pages is to put the following after the
first paragraph.

NOTE: HTML files are the authoritative version. All other formats are
provided for the convenience of the readers.

Please discuss. After some discussion time, I will craft a motion for the
email vote.

-- 
Nat Sakimura (=nat)
Chairman, OpenID Foundation
http://nat.sakimura.org/
@_nat_en
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