[OpenID board] IPR Policy and Process Proposal

Tue Apr 24 17:33:44 UTC 2007

Gabe and everyone--

Thanks very much for this attention to getting things both done and messaged.  It just makes such a difference and the community will benefit quickly as a result.

cheers,
-bill

----- Original Message ----
From: Gabe Wachob <gabe.wachob at amsoft.net>
To: board at openid.net
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 10:23:41 AM
Subject: Re: [OpenID board] IPR Policy and Process Proposal

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I think we can definitely distill this
into bullet points. The IPR policy is probably the most complicated and foreign
to people. I think my “process” proposal can be boiled down to a handful of
bullet points. 

Its kinda like the spec itself – you read
it without any intro and it looks kinda complicated. But if you get a 50,000
foot view at first, most of the verbiage turns out to be relatively detailed
stuff you can safely ignore assuming you aren’t a core spec developer. 

I’m guessing it’s the shock of the
verbiage that got you – once you read through it, you’ll find that in practice,
its lightweight and everyone who is operating under it will (I think) mostly be
able to forget about it. That’s the goal, at least. 

I’m going to attempt to compose an intro
letter today (probably tonight) and pass it out here and to Mike Jones and the
other MS folks and we can start on discussions and plans on legal at .. 

            -Gabe

From:
board-bounces at openid.net [mailto:board-bounces at openid.net] On Behalf Of Johannes Ernst

Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 9:19
AM

To: board at openid.net

Subject: Re: [OpenID board] IPR
Policy and Process Proposal

Hi Gabe,

first let me be clear that it is much better to have a (complex) IPR
policy than not having any at all. I am grateful to you and everybody else who
has contributed to this so far.

Also to be clear, my measurement of complexity is very crude: the
amount of time I (or anybody else) expects to need to spend until they
understand the IPR policy. That's the equivalent of "how many screens do I
need to click through to sign up" somewhere. The longer it is, the less
likely it is that people will get involved. So far, we've been doing
excellently well on that measure:

"Nobody should own this ... " etc can be read and understood
in about 10 seconds. I'm afraid that we are moving that measure up to 1 hour
plus.

It may be that it simply cannot be done in, say, 5 minutes. In which
case, well, that's what we have to live with. Not being a lawyer, I will need
to trust you and others to make that judgment call for us.

I'm just asking: is there some way we can simplify, even at the cost of
moving from a 99% solution to an 80% solution (but not a 20% solution.) If the
answer is no, well, so be it. If if the answer is "perhaps a bit", it
should be worthwhile to pursue this.

Makes sense?

Thanks,

Johannes.

On Apr 23, 2007, at 18:02, Gabe Wachob 
wrote:

Johannes-

 I just dont 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. Verisigns participation has been great, but I dont 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? Its
much lighter-weight than any standards body I know of, and yet requires *no new behavior* of most people
participating now (those who dont 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 dont 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 dont get started on that asap, well never make IIW, to be honest). But I
dont think its all that complicated compared to most IPR agreements Ive seen.
Compare to W3C: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/
or OASIS: http://www.oasis-open.org/who/intellectualproperty.php
or the IETFs (which I think is getting an overhaul?): http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3979.txt

 Were not forming a standards body here, were just trying
to make the environment good enough 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 SDOs 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 Im not finding it 

 In any case, Ive added some notes on a workplan here: http://openid.net/wiki/index.php/IPR_%26_Process_Work_Plan

 -Gabe

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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.

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http://netmesh.info/jernst

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Johannes Ernst

NetMesh Inc.

http://netmesh.info/jernst

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