[OpenID board] The Specs Council and Process (WAS: Re: Executive Committee meeting 12/18/2008 ...)

[Nat Sakimura]

Hi.

On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 9:40 AM, David Recordon <drecordon at sixapart.com>wrote:

> On Dec 17, 2008, at 4:10 PM, Dick Hardt wrote:
>
> > On 17-Dec-08, at 2:29 PM, David Recordon wrote:
> >
> >> Or ideally the group would emerge with a draft of a spec along with
> >> some form of consensus around it and thus be easier to write and have
> >> a better informed scope statement.
> >>
> >> If we were to do this, what would it look like?
> >>
> >> 1) Some group of people decide they want to tackle a problem.  They
> >> email the specs@ mailing list with some sort of description of what
> >> they want to do and we set them up with a mailing list like drafting-
> >> <name>@openid.net.  (I'd also have no problem in using Google Groups
> >> for these since it's less maintenance and makes it easier for those
> >> leading the work to manage.)
> >
> > I'm fine with Google groups -- but we need to enforce membership and
> > have IPR in place to participate
>
> Good points.  We need a process for dealing with the IPR docs.  This
> is ideally something the ED will do.  They receive an IPR doc, upload
> it somewhere, and add the person's name, affiliation, and email to a
> web page which WG editors can refer to when processing membership.
> ASF's page is at http://people.apache.org/~jim/committers.html<http://people.apache.org/%7Ejim/committers.html>
> .
>
>
> >> 2) Group is created and it tries to stay away from calling their
> >> document "OpenID <foo>" for the time being.
> >
> > how about OpenID-Proposal-<foo>
>
> Sure, just some clear naming convention that won't confuse adopters.
>
>
> >> 3) To post to the list, you must agree to the existing IPR policy so
> >> everything around withdrawal and review periods of later stage drafts
> >> remain the same.
> >
> > Is that an email or a executed form faxed in?
>
> I think the form currently needs to be faxed or scanned and emailed.


Or handed in person, which I did in the iiw2008a.


>
>
>
> > The challenge for some people will be that they do not want what
> > they consider unrelated IPR to be brought into a WG -- and since the
> > scope is not really defined, they need to be able to opt out after
> > scope is defined. I forget if that is in the IPR statements now.
>
> I'd think these people wouldn't participate in this earlier work if
> they're uncomfortable doing so without a scope, though also reading
> the IPR Policy the withdrawal provision might already be enough to
> work.  Basically, as long as these groups don't publish Implementor
> Drafts or a Final Specification, then contributors are allowed to
> withdraw given seven days written notice, would not have any
> obligations around patents, and would remain subject to the copyrights
> section.


But of course, if that happens, the WG must identify what IPR infringement
they were making.


>
>
>
> >> 4) At some point, one or more drafts in, the group decides to
> >> formalize their WG.
> >> 5) They write a charter/scope to submit along with their draft and an
> >> accurate list of authors/contributors.
> >> 6) Specs Council / membership approves their WG or decides that the
> >> draft they've produced really doesn't fit into OpenID and works with
> >> the group on either how to change that (e.g. more reuse) or helps
> >> them
> >> move to another organization to finish their work.
> >
> > currently we require a membership vote to approve a WG do we not?
>
> Yes, oversight not including that versus explicitly looking to not
> include the step.  That said, shortening the ~30 days here would be
> nice.  I also wonder if the membership vote is actually effective
> given how it is currently designed with quorum and a simple majority.
>

It is ineffective and not needed, I think.
It is better to check afterwards than before.
Right now, we have three check points: 1. Implementor's draft, 2. Final
spec., 3. Market adoption.
That should be enough. To me, 3. is the most important one.


>
>
> >> 7) They use the rest of the process to publish an Implementor's Draft
> >> and then in the end a Final Draft.
> >
> > and then a vote by the membership
>
> Yes, I don't propose changing the process for publishing Implementors
> Drafts or the Final Specification at this time.  As far as I can tell,
> this is:
>
> Implementors Draft:
>  - WG comes to consensus to publish an Implementors Draft
>  - 45 day IPR review period starts aimed at contributors
>  - The OIDF board has 30 days (within the 45) to make sure the
> Implementors Draft won't "create untenable legal liability for OIDF or
> the Board" and that it is not outside of the WG's scope.
>  - (It seems there is also written in a membership vote here, though
> it doesn't make sense and I'm guessing is an extra copy/paste.)
>
> Final Specification:
>  - WG comes to consensus to publish the Final Specification after at
> least one Implementors Draft
>  - 60 day IPR review period starts aimed at contributors
>  - The OIDF board has 30 days (within the 45) to make sure the
> Implementors Draft won't "create untenable legal liability for OIDF or
> the Board" and that it is not outside of the WG's scope.
>  - 14 day notice period of an OIDF member vote to approve the Final
> Specification


As to these votings are concerned, would individual members count too?

I think it is a good move to try to get more non-tech normal people start
joining the foundaiton, but at the same time, having them involved in the
voting of this sort is kind of hard...


-- 
Nat Sakimura (=nat)
http://www.sakimura.org/en/
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