[OpenID board] Fwd: [IDtbd] Rev 2.0 of Draft Bylaws and IPR Policy

[Nat Sakimura]

I would like to point out couple of things here.

First, about the power structure.

The IdTBD takes bicameral model.

One is Leadership council, which consists of the leaders of the WGs.
You do not have to be a paying member to be a participant of a WG, and
thus you do not have to be a paying member to be a WG leader.
Most things happens here and at WGs.
In a sense, it is the House of Commons. Most power resides here.

The other is the Board of Trustees. It is responsible for fiduciary
requirement, such as keeping the book, legal compliance check,
checking if all the IPR issues are sort out before the spec is submit
to a Standard Setting Organization (SSO), staff oversight, negotiation
with the relevant SSO when transfering the spec to it, etc. Everything
apart from the staff hiring/payment etc., which is required by law to
be private, are going to be transparent, so a company who voted for
something that would not be popular among the community at large will
pick up a bad reputation.
The board is not nearly as powerful as the OpenID Board. In a sense,
the Board of Trustees is House of Lords.

Since the Leadership Council reflects the view of the entire
community, not only the paying member unlike OIDF, it could be argued
that it is a more democratic organization.

The second point is the IPR agreements. As to the IPRs are concerned,
there will be multiple IPR agreements. It is up to the WGs to pick one
from the given list. If there is not one that satisfy your
requirement, you can submit it to the IdTBD to be added to the list.
What has been distributed is the Liberty Policy, which is the most
relevant at this time since they are transitioning their existing
working groups (TEGs and SIGs) to IdTBD. If your organization is to
join and merge into IdTBD, your IPR agreements are also going to be
added. Perhaps submitting an IPR agreement that you believe the best
to IdTBD list would be a good practice. I think I am going to request
CC licenses to be added to the list. Is there anything else that you
want to submit?

=nat

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 5:30 PM, David Recordon <david at sixapart.com> wrote:
> Attached are the draft Bylaws and IPR Policy coming out of the IDtbd face to
> face meeting (which I did not attend) earlier this week.  The model largely
> seems to be the same as from the discussions last year, a Board of Trustees
> mainly consisting of companies that control the funds within the
> organization and then a separate Leadership Council made up of working group
> leaders who request money from the company body.  The Bylaws document is a
> red-line from last year so it is easy to see how little has actually
> changed.  Additionally, the draft IPR Policy does not seem to take into
> account much of the innovation that has occurred over the past two years
> within the OpenID, OAuth, OpenSocial and Open Web Foundation communities but
> rather is a much more traditional large SDO policy.
> While there is obviously enough interest in this model for Liberty to be
> moving forward, I still don't believe that it is a model matching the values
> of the OpenID community (nor that of the communities behind technologies
> like OAuth and OpenSocial).
> --David
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Bill Smith <Bill.Smith at Sun.COM>
> Date: February 26, 2009 9:55:31 PM PST
> To: idtbd at googlegroups.com
> Subject: [IDtbd] Rev 2.0 of Draft Bylaws and IPR Policy
> Reply-To: idtbd at googlegroups.com
> All,
> I wanted to thank to everyone that participated in the discussions over the
> past two days. I believe they were productive and have resulted in a better
> understanding of our issue and concerns.
> Attached are updated Draft Bylaws and IPR Policy documents that I hope
> reflect the discussions that we held over the past two days. These new
> drafts are the result of review and revision by a small group of those that
> participated in the discussions and represent our best effort to establish a
> consensus position of all in the room.
> The Bylaws are a redlined from Version 1.0. The IPR Policy is not redlined
> but includes changes that should reflect our intention that license
> obligations attach only to WG members. Below is a concise outline of the
> Policy:
>
> WG Member
>
> Default RF license obligation
> Option to withdraw Necessary Claims to RAND during prescribed periods
> Option to withdraw from WG (license obligation depends on timing of
> withdrawal)
> Contributions RF, no option to withdraw (unless disclosure at time of
> contribution)
>
> WG Non-member
>
> No obligation to license
>
> Please review and submit comments at your earliest convenience.
> Regards,
> Bill
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> board mailing list
> board at openid.net
> http://openid.net/mailman/listinfo/board
>
>



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