Re: Some questions (OASIS IPR changes)

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Subject: Re: Some questions (OASIS IPR changes)




From: James Bryce Clark <>
To: 
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 13:05:42 -0800






At 11:23 AM 2/10/2005, John Greacen wrote:
>At the Steering Committee meeting yesterday, I was asked to pose two 
>questions to you:  Has OASIS adopted the membership agreement yet?  It is 
>not included within the packet of materials for the new IPR policy.  And 
>it appears that we cannot move forward to adopt one of the new policies 
>until at least half of our members have signed the membership agreement.

     Yes, and it should be posted within 24 hours.  My colleague Scott 
McGrath, copied here, will be its "keeper" and should be the first stop for 
any questions.  It's our hope that, as written, it will allow any 
organization to work out, fairly easily, who should be "the" member and who 
should sign --  even though that set of issues can be varied and complex, 
depending on the organization or agency.

>As a group, we are not clear about the application of the new rules (or 
>the current rules for that matter) to persons who are OASIS members and TC 
>members, but in observerstatus.  It seems we have two categories of 
>observers.  One is persons who are not members of OASIS who ask to attend 
>a meeting to learn about what we are doing.

     Our rules, both old and new, do not permit nonmember participants to 
attend official TC meeting sessions. This is to ensure that the IPR 
policies in force, at any given time, actually will apply to the 
proceedings there -- and a nonmember has made no such commitments.  There 
are quite a few ways to extend communication lines outside of the TC 
members, including liaisons and informal pre- or post-meeting 
sessions.  And we are very good at encouraging and supporting those 
methods, so I encourage anyone with a specific participation issue to 
contact Scott or me.  But, as with *most* other well-defined standards 
organizations, walk-ins who have no agreed to our rules aren't 
supported.  This has been true for so long as I have known OASIS.

>The other is persons who chose observer status in our TC they are OASIS 
>members, they are members of the lists, they may participate in 
>discussions, they just cannot vote and are not required to maintain the 
>meeting participation standard.  Is it correct to say that the feedback 
>form adopted as part of the IPR policy applies to any contribution by the 
>former type of observer but not to the latter?

     It does apply to the former.  As to the latter, it depends on what you 
mean by "observer".
     The new rules will bifurcate TC "membership" and TC "voting 
membership".  It will be possible to remain a *member* without the current 
(show-up-2-times-out-of-3) attendance requirements, which will apply only 
to maintenance of *voting* membership.  So I'd expect active observers will 
just join as (nonvoting) members -- who will face no feedback licenses.
     It will be clearer under the revised IPR rules that participation in a 
*single TC* is the trigger for specific IP obligations with respect to that 
TC's work -- so yes, if someone (whether or not an OASIS member) submits a 
comment from outside the membership of the XYZ TC, they wil be a true 
"observer", and will be subject to the feedback license arrangement.
     FYI, we also are working on some technical improvements so that the 
feedback license is much easier.  We *may* be able to avoid requiring a web 
form altogether.  User-friendliness is very important to our staff, and we 
will look forward to getting your feedback on these methods once we have 
something to demonstrate. The LegalXML section's earlier input was 
extremely helpful and decisive in some of our Board's deliberations on how 
best to structure the IPR policy & membership arrangements.

>Thanks for clarifying these matters for us.
>John M. Greacen
>Greacen Associates, LLC
>HCR 78, Box 23
>Regina, New Mexico 87046
>505-289-2164

     Please note:  the threshold issue the LegalXML TCs will face is 
*whether* and *when* to convert.  There is a two-year window.  More data 
later this week will be posted to the [chairs] list, as previously 
announced, for scheduled orientation and Q&A sessions about those 
transition/ conversion issues.

     Best regards  JBC
~   James Bryce Clark
~   Director, Standards Development, OASIS
~   

>505-289-2163 (fax)
>505-780-1450 (cell)