[OpenID] AX comments, AX namespace comments, split IPR concerning namespaces.

[Peter Williams]

Speaking as a openid adopting user - with a mission to report back to a committee of US realty folks who are non technical (but who are part of a VERY political trade association process) - let me enumerate the essence of what I will report back and/or recommend.

If your tolerance for email is 5 lines, delete now.

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1. OpenID AX is a" declared finished" 2.0 product. Community IPR rules distinguish between draft and finalized specifications. A strict separation of US organized realty community IPR and openID community IPR is advised. A formal liaison between the OpenID Foundation and the RETS Board of Directors may be appropriate, given common interests.

2. http://www.axschema.org/specs/openid-attribute-types-1_0-02.html is not a declared finished product, but should be assumed to be a draft work product of the OpenID Foundation. The draft clearly states that the process it describes relates only to a particular namespace, noting that 'are no restrictions on the definition and creation of attributes in other name spaces". 

3. "Discussions on the list <http://groups.google.com/group/axschema>  will dictate whether or not your new attribute is accepted" ... into 'the "schema.openid.net" name space'. The discussion and consensus mechanism is essentially public. This process has no bearing on processes used by realty MLSs. Production of IPR embodied within a realty-specific AX namespace does not fall under the openid IPR ruleset. Publication of draft, discussion or final specifications of any US realty-specific MLS namespaces will not fall under the OpenID IPR ruleset.

4. From  openid-general list discussion, noone should construe that performing the "definition and creation of attributes in other name spaces" runs counter to OpenID Foundation policies and its current mission. Nothing in recent PRs was intended to refer to the namespace topic discussed in this (draft) memo.

5. Assertion and/or enforcement of proprietary legal or moral claims (e.g. imposition of licensed usage rules) on a namespace and data types other than 'the "schema.openid.net" name space' does NOT violate any OpenID community norms or general philosophy.

6. If a particular realty "MLS" wishes to license certain IT vendors its business practices (including its own AX namespace used when applying AX during form entry of that MLS's property listings), it may properly do so - under the norms of the wider OpenID community. Organized Realty in the US may continue to publish its openid namespace and attribute types to those IT vendors using the realty-standardized metadata and attribute syntax standard and process  (http://www.rets.org/documentation), and may also apply the established process for defining "standard: names and types optionally that all affiliated organized realty sites MUST support.

7. None of the processes used in http://www.axschema.org/specs/openid-attribute-types-1_0-02.html need be adopted by a realty MLS, when deciding on which properties shall be adopted into its AX namespace, or how "(realty) standard names" should be defined when applying OpenID AX. Realty's "standard names" are just another (necessarily non-proprietary) namespace in the family of AX namespaces.

Peter.