[legal] Comments on copyright license in the proposed IPR policy

[Drummond Reed]

+1. Good suggestion, Gabe.

=Drummond 

-----Original Message-----
From: legal-bounces at openid.net [mailto:legal-bounces at openid.net] On Behalf
Of Gabe Wachob
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 12:59 PM
To: 'Mark Wahl'; 'Simon Josefsson'
Cc: legal at openid.net
Subject: Re: [legal] Comments on copyright license in the proposed IPR
policy

I was thinking of folks like 3rd parties who are commenting on the protocol,
or proposing improvements, without actually being implementers - the
question is whether they need a license to do this. In addition, people like
my former employer (Visa) who aren't actually writing code, but are
interested in developing technical specifications for 3rd parties to
implement. 

I do think that "Implementers" seems like a rather narrow category of users
of the spec - again, though its not clear what sort of specific license is
needed for other parties.

I rather like the idea of one of the Creative Commons copyright licenses
because it expresses the intent directly and we don't have to dicker with
details. 

The Attribution-NonCommercial, seems is best appropriate, probably also with
ShareAlike. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ or
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ )

	-Gabe

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Wahl [mailto:Mark.Wahl at informed-control.com]
> Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 12:45 PM
> To: Gabe Wachob; 'Simon Josefsson'
> Cc: legal at openid.net
> Subject: Re: [legal] Comments on copyright license in the proposed IPR
> policy
> 
> Gabe Wachob wrote:
> 
> > 	If others share Simon's concerns, please say so here.
> 
> Mr. Josefsson wrote:
> 
>  >>The copyright license says:
> >>
> >>    "Copyright License. Some Contributions are not subject to
> >>    copyright. However, to the extent a Contribution is or may be
> subject
> >>    to copyright, the Contributor hereby agrees to grant a perpetual,
> >>    non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide copyright license to OpenID,
> >>    to other Contributors, and to Implementers, to reproduce, prepare
> >>    derivative works from, distribute, perform and display the
> >>    Contribution and derivative works thereof solely for the development
> >>    and implementation of OpenID Specifications."
> >>
> >> This do not grant a copyright license to third parties.  Is that the
> >> intention?
> 
> A third party that is not an "Implementer"?  Would not a free software
> developer that implements OpenID specifications be an Implementer?
> Implementors are granted the rights in the copyright license above.
> 
> A party who it appears would not be granted a right by this license
> would be, for example, someone who wishes to publish the
> "Big Book of OpenID Specifications" but who is not a contributor or an
> implementor.
> 
> Mark Wahl
> Informed Control Inc.

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