[OpenID] Opened IPR Policy Draft

Gabe Wachob gabe.wachob at amsoft.net
Tue Dec 12 21:42:00 UTC 2006


Well said Phill. 

We'd like to take an off-the-shelf policy that is comes with an
off-the-shelf process (the two are very intertwined) that produces
specifications that can be taken to more established SDOs. Once this thing
exists, this IPR discussion can be very much quicker.

As you've noted in earlier emails, the landscape is still changing, and even
the SDOs are just now getting their arms around the optimal IPR policies for
themselves. But because these IPR policies are based on concepts like
"membership" and "termination of membership" and "votes to approve
contributions", we can't simply import them wholesale, unless we adopt those
process concepts as well. 

I'd like to have the one IPR policy/process to rule them all (at least for
open community-based standards like OpenID). We're not there yet. Maybe
we're making steps in the right direction, though.

	-Gabe



> -----Original Message-----
> From: general-bounces at openid.net [mailto:general-bounces at openid.net] On
> Behalf Of Hallam-Baker, Phillip
> Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 11:12 AM
> To: David Nicol; James A. Donald
> Cc: Martin Atkins; Gavin Baumanis; specs at openid.net; general at openid.net
> Subject: Re: [OpenID] Opened IPR Policy Draft
> 
> The problem is not the people who contribute, it's the ones who never join
> the group or agree to any license because they never intend to make or
> sell anything.
> 
> Align with the standards bodies, that way we have the option of going to a
> standards body later.
> 
> I have been through the pain here... The concern I have is that we don't
> end up in the situation that caused one of my standards groups I was
> trying to form to implode during formation.
> 
> I want to standardize the legal part of the process. Mozilla is not a good
> model, there are ideological commitments there which are not widely
> appreciated and in certain quarters distinctly unappreciated.
> 
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: specs-bounces at openid.net
> > [mailto:specs-bounces at openid.net] On Behalf Of David Nicol
> > Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 2:02 PM
> > To: James A. Donald
> > Cc: specs at openid.net; Martin Atkins; Gavin Baumanis;
> > general at openid.net
> > Subject: Re: [OpenID] Opened IPR Policy Draft
> >
> > On 12/12/06, James A. Donald <jamesd at echeque.com> wrote:
> > > Changes and enhancements to the openID standard are
> > patentable.  When
> > > the standard was originally proposed, it was far from clear that it
> > > would be widely adopted, so it is unlikely that anyone
> > patented it in
> > > time, so the original standard is safe from IP.
> >
> > What a headache.  Let's get whoever makes the best reference
> > implementation to release it MPL.  Mozilla PL has viral
> > patent grant language in it while explicitly allowing MPLd
> > code to be included in "Larger Projects."  (not sure about
> > the viral nature of the patent grant language; if we want a
> > viral patent grant we might have to create the OIDPL or something)
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > perl -le'1while(1x++$_)=~/^(11+)\1+$/||print'
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> >
> >
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