[OpenID board] IPR Policy and Process Proposal

[Scott Kveton]

I think we need a certain level of complexity ... However, it doesn't mean
we can't message to the wider community in blog posts, etc about what the
gist of the IPR policy is.  I'd be more than happy to do this if someone
could come up with a bullet list of things we're trying to accomplish here.
This is a "good thing" IMHO but its important that we make it clear that
there is more to it than just the simple summary we give them.

Just a thought,

- Scott




On 4/23/07 6:02 PM, "Gabe Wachob" <gabe.wachob at amsoft.net> wrote:

> Johannes-
>  
> I just don¹t see how Microsoft or anyone else on their scale is going to
> contribute without something much more rigorous in place than what we have
> now. Verisign¹s participation has been great, but I don¹t think the IPR issue
> with Verisign is completely clear to outside parties, or even me!
>  
> You actually document some issues yourself, Johannes, in discussions late last
> year. For example:
>  
> http://osdir.com/ml/web.openid.specs/2006-12/msg00036.html
>  
> What is too complicated in the current proposal? It¹s much lighter-weight than
> any standards body I know of, and yet requires *no new behavior* of most
> people participating now (those who don¹t care about ever asserting IPR
> rights). It puts the onus of extra work on those who only want to commit to a
> more specific set of licensing, as it should. Simple things simple,
> complicated things more complicated. If don¹t care about protecting your IPR
> w/r/t OpenID, then you do nothing. If you do care, then you have an extra step
> to do. 
>  
> As for the language of the IPR policy itself, I actually think its fairly
> straightforward ­ lawyers will have to gnaw on it of course (if we don¹t get
> started on that asap, we¹ll never make IIW, to be honest). But I don¹t think
> it¹s all that complicated compared to most IPR agreements I¹ve seen. Compare
> to W3C: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/  or OASIS:
> http://www.oasis-open.org/who/intellectualproperty.php  or the IETF¹s (which I
> think is getting an overhaul?): http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3979.txt
>  
> We¹re not forming a standards body here, we¹re just trying to make the
> environment ³good enough² to attract a wider set of participants and adopters.
> Both sides are going to have to work a little bit in a new way, I think. To
> put a challenge to you, can you give examples of grassroots communities
> outside formal SDO¹s adopting IPR policies that are both acceptable to large
> IPR-holding organizations as contributors and as 3rd party adopters? We should
> definitely be stealing their ideas rather than coming up with our own, but I¹m
> not finding itŠ 
>  
> In any case, I¹ve added some notes on a workplan here:
> http://openid.net/wiki/index.php/IPR_%26_Process_Work_Plan
>  
>             -Gabe
>  
>  
>  
> 
> 
> From: board-bounces at openid.net [mailto:board-bounces at openid.net] On Behalf Of
> Johannes Ernst
> Sent: Monday, April 23, 2007 12:25 PM
> To: board at openid.net
> Subject: Re: [OpenID board] IPR Policy and Process Proposal
>  
> This is quite complex. Is there a way to simplify and shorten substantially?
> 
>  
> 
> [I just read both policy proposal and process proposal, and in spite of having
> read previous drafts and having an interest in the subject, I suspect I'd have
> to spend several more hours to actually understand what all of this means. The
> problem is not that I need to take the time, but that such a time requirement
> will act as a rather effective barrier for new people to get involved in
> OpenID or feeling comfortable about what they are getting themselves into,
> something I'd like to avoid if can ...]
> 
>  
> 
>  
>  
> 
> Johannes Ernst
> 
> NetMesh Inc.
> 
>  
> 
> http://netmesh.info/jernst
> 
> 
>  
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