OpenID IPR Policy Draft

[Johannes Ernst]

I agree.

There is also the scenario where somebody does have undisclosed  
patents (read: at least all large companies), they consider  
themselves to be fine because they don't think any of the current  
OpenID discussion relates to them, but then, somebody takes the  
conversation into a different direction (say, a new crypto algorithm,  
or a way of connecting OpenID to One-click ;-)), and the new  
direction does relate to their patents. What now?

It's got to be by actual contribution, not just by passive listening.  
Otherwise we scare off way more people than I would like to scare off...

On Dec 7, 2006, at 10:54, Martin Atkins wrote:


> Recordon, David wrote:
>
>>
>> http://openid.net/wiki/index.php/IPR_Policy
>>
> general at openid.net, specs at openid.net
>
> I agree.
>
> There is also the scenario where somebody does have undisclosed  
> patents (read: at least all large companies), they consider  
> themselves to be fine because they don't think any of the current  
> OpenID discussion relates to them, but then, somebody takes the  
> conversation into a different direction (say, a new crypto  
> algorithm, or a way of connecting OpenID to One-click ;-)), and the  
> new direction does relate to their patents. What now?
>
> It's got to be by actual contribution, not just by passive  
> listening. Otherwise we scare off way more people than I would like  
> to scare off...
>
> On Dec 7, 2006, at 10:54, Martin Atkins wrote:
>
>
>> Recordon, David wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> http://openid.net/wiki/index.php/IPR_Policy
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Is it really possible to use mailing list subscription as a  
>> trigger for
>> a contract like this? The whole idea scares me a little bit, to be  
>> honest.
>>
>> It seems more sensible to me to put these restrictions on actual
>> *contributions*: require that any proposal or concrete
>> specification/implementation offered via the mailing lists or other
>> "official" channels to come with patent disclosure, and only  
>> *then* are
>> any undisclosed patents assumed to constitute a royalty-free,  
>> perpetual
>> licence.
>>
>> As it is currently written, I think lots of companies that retain
>> software patents of any kind — or even ones that don't but may  
>> wish to
>> in the future — would be put off contributing due to the risk that  
>> their
>> patents may be implicitly licenced to everyone.
>>
>> I'm not a lawyer, of course. However, not everyone who could  
>> potentially
>> be affected by this is a lawyer either, so putting in stuff that
>> potentially scares non-lawyers like myself is probably a bad idea.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> specs mailing list
>> specs at openid.net
>> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/specs
>>
>
>
> Is it really possible to use mailing list subscription as a trigger  
> for
> a contract like this? The whole idea scares me a little bit, to be  
> honest.
>
> It seems more sensible to me to put these restrictions on actual
> *contributions*: require that any proposal or concrete
> specification/implementation offered via the mailing lists or other
> "official" channels to come with patent disclosure, and only *then*  
> are
> any undisclosed patents assumed to constitute a royalty-free,  
> perpetual
> licence.
>
> As it is currently written, I think lots of companies that retain
> software patents of any kind — or even ones that don't but may wish to
> in the future — would be put off contributing due to the risk that  
> their
> patents may be implicitly licenced to everyone.
>
> I'm not a lawyer, of course. However, not everyone who could  
> potentially
> be affected by this is a lawyer either, so putting in stuff that
> potentially scares non-lawyers like myself is probably a bad idea.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> specs mailing list
> specs at openid.net
> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/specs
>