[OpenID] OpenID license

Wed Jul 21 22:40:35 UTC 2010

To be honest, after reading that license snippet and the agreements I'm 
now more concerned than ever.

What I read is that there could be a load of undisclosed patents on 
these specifications, and that by implementing the specifications I 
could at some point be sued or chased for royalties.

[1] scares the hell out of me, and the chunk of text which basically 
reads 'we can all sue, and if you sue, I might too' does very very very 
little to make me feel any better about that.

So, what I'm looking for here is to see the 'CC Attribution Share Alike' 
license (or well known equivalent) on the OpenID specifications, (and if 
needed to cover *my* ass legally, patent disclosures, royalty free 
assertions and all related) - can and will you do this, yes or no.

Pease, just a simple yes or no, and if yes, when.

If not, I for one simply can't take the risk of implementing them.

[1] 'Patent Disclosures. There is no requirement or expectation by 
others that Contributor should disclose patents or patent applications 
that Contributor has reason to believe may contain Necessary Claims. 
OIDF hereby disclaims any responsibility for identifying the existence, 
or for evaluating the applicability, of any patents, patent 
applications, or other rights (including copyrights) claimed to be 
applicable to any Specification and will take no position on the 
validity or scope of any such rights.'

Regards,

Nathan

David Recordon wrote:
> The IPR policy includes a copyright license for them. I don't think that we
> have determined the exact text which should be included in the
> specifications. The Open Web Foundation provides guidance for their license
> at
> http://wiki.openwebfoundation.org/How_to_use_the_agreement#What_To_Include_In_The_Specification_Itself.
> We should use a version of that which matches the OpenID IPR policy.
> 
> I'd like to see us just move to the OWF IPR policy which would help to
> address these sorts of issues in the future as well.
> 
> --David
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 12:37 PM, Nat Sakimura <sakimura at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Actually, I have asked the same thing long time ago when we started
>> translation project at OIDF-J since it was a blocking issue. We should
>> fix it ASAP, but that means OIDF needs to decide on what Copyright
>> license.
>>
>> =nat
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 4:15 AM, Chris Messina <chris.messina at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> It seems worth clarifying this situation -- if only because I was
>> personally surprised to not see a clear license on the docs themselves
>> (copyright, specifically).
>>> Any reason why we haven't taken 10 minutes to make that change?
>>>
>>> Nathan -- are you blocked by not having a clear [copyright] license on
>> the specs?
>>> Chris
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>> On Jul 21, 2010, at 9:11 AM, Nat Sakimura <sakimura at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Apparently, it is full3978. It is written in the spec XML.
>>>>
>>>> Having said that, I prefer to have additional license such as CC.
>>>>
>>>> Also note that all the wiki contents are  under GNU Free Documentation
>> License.
>>>> On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 9:22 PM, Nathan <nathan at webr3.org> wrote:
>>>>> Hi David,
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for the link, I actually checked that before I sent the mail
>>>>> yesterday, and I'm familiar with the patent non assert agreement.
>>>>>
>>>>> However, really, where's the license? I've tried looking everywhere and
>> the
>>>>> best I can find is this thread from 2 years ago:
>>>>>
>> http://groups.google.com/group/dataportability-public/browse_thread/thread/86a0351f525a53d9
>>>>> which explains things better, but still that thread ends with:
>>>>> 'It would take all of 10 minutes for the OpenID foundation to say "this
>>>>> spec is at-the-least copyright us and redistributable under the CC
>>>>> Share-Alike License" and drop that license onto the specs and on the
>>>>> site's IP policies page -- which I'm hoping they finally do.'
>>>>>
>>>>> He's right, it would take all of 10 minutes, certainly not 2 years - so
>>>>> where is the license - what's stopping this from happening? I *really*
>> don't
>>>>> follow here.
>>>>>
>>>>> aside: on the intellectual property page you have 'These documents are
>>>>> listed below as well as available here.' But there's no list below and
>> the
>>>>> 'here' link returns a 'You don't have permission to access /ipr/ on
>> this
>>>>> server.'
>>>>>
>>>>> Best,
>>>>>
>>>>> Nathan
>>>>>
>>>>> David Recordon wrote:
>>>>>> Hi Nathan, you can find the OpenID Foundation's IPR policy at
>>>>>> http://openid.net/intellectual-property/. All of the contributors to
>> those
>>>>>> specifications signed non-assertion agreements.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --David
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 6:09 PM, Nathan <nathan at webr3.org> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm trying to find what license the following spec's are released
>> under:
>>>>>>> OpenID Authentication 2.0
>>>>>>> OpenID Attribute Exchange 1.0
>>>>>>> OpenID Provider Authentication Policy Extension 1.0
>>>>>>> OpenID Authentication 1.1
>>>>>>> OpenID Simple Registration Extension 1.0
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I've searched them all for any mention of license, patent, royalty
>> and
>>>>>>> similar and found nothing at all?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Are the spec's and technologies all completely public domain, if not
>>>>>>> which
>>>>>>> license(s) are they covered by?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks in advance,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Nathan
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> general mailing list
>>>>>>> general at lists.openid.net
>>>>>>> http://lists.openid.net/mailman/listinfo/openid-general
>>>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> general mailing list
>>>>> general at lists.openid.net
>>>>> http://lists.openid.net/mailman/listinfo/openid-general
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Nat Sakimura (=nat)
>>>> http://www.sakimura.org/en/
>>>> http://twitter.com/_nat_en
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> general mailing list
>>>> general at lists.openid.net
>>>> http://lists.openid.net/mailman/listinfo/openid-general
>>
>>
>> --
>> Nat Sakimura (=nat)
>> http://www.sakimura.org/en/
>> http://twitter.com/_nat_en
>> _______________________________________________
>> general mailing list
>> general at lists.openid.net
>> http://lists.openid.net/mailman/listinfo/openid-general
>>
> 
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