Dear friends and colleagues,
The current dialog regarding IP on
this list is familiar in it contentiousness and the gap in perspective it reveals. I humbly suggest for the sake of people's attention and in line with the purpose of this list, this dialog be moved to another or a new list, if there is sufficient interest in further discussing the relevant
issues. I would
support carrying on the dialog and would be interested to hear
(off-list) whom else would also have interest. I believe the issues are
fundamental to the suitability of OASIS to carry on certain types of
open standards, and generally important to the uneasy current balance
between cultures within OASIS. My analysis and suggestions are below.
I'm
in sync with the sentiments expressed on openness regarding open
standards and open source, but am reluctant to compel companies or
individuals to give more detail on why they choose this or that IP
policy. It is very important that we all, as professional who work
together voluntarily and in good will, be careful neither to impugn the
motives or truth-telling of others in our community, not be over
intrusive in changing other modes of doing business and cultural
expectations about spin vs. accuracy. However, in a respectful way, I
wish to take this opportunity to more fully explore the important
issues raised by this topic. I hope that the rift between advocates of
more fully operating in the public, non-commercial interest for such
applications as open government and open civic architectures can
continue to work with an in OASIS in the future - but the different
cultures jostling within OASIS would be well served by finding better
governance and
business processes to ease joining together with
like minded people who seek to get together to do the people’s work in
an open standards body.
Please note that the instinct to ask
more and more questions about the motives of commercial organizations
regarding their IP is of limited and instantly diminishing value. More
information freely given can be helpful, but it seems an odd practice
to force private businesses that exist, inter alia, for
proprietarization of software to speculate about or otherwise limit
their options by describing their inner motives for choosing a given IP
policy. Compelled speech is usually a bad idea, even when required for
good reasons (and who, after all, is to judge what reasons are "good" -
so let's just say " even for reasons you agree with"). It also seems
to me that the choice of a policy that allows licensing fees and other
restrictions speaks for itself. It is, in fact, a valid policy that
explicitly and impliedly conveys an array of options. That is the
reason it was chosen - so the IP holders can gain access to that
horizon of IP licensing possibility. In latin the phrase would be
"res ipsa loquitur" - the thing speaks for itself. The choice of a
given IP regime puts everybody on notice of what *can* happen. In my
experience, sensitively chosen language around choice of IP can serve
to obfuscate rather than clarify the relevant realities at play. I'd
rather read a smarmy, crisp statement like "because it's a valid IP
choice" than the next most likely alternative - a paragraph of sculpted
PR language around IP that leave the head spinning without sharpening
access to relevant facts.
I support the evident intent behind
the suggestion that better information hence choice be available
regarding IP. Here is some background on my perspective of the context
of this dialog in OASIS and the types of ways we can constructively
further evolve the culture and practices in OASIS to be more suitable
work environment for open, non-proprietary standards.
When I
helped to negotiate the merger of LegalXML into OASIS as a Member
Section, we found that our IP policies and culture was a clash with
that of OASIS. This was because we forbade the licensing of our
end-product standards and other works anyway but by copyleft. OASIS,
by contrast, permitted exclusive, proprietary, license fee copyright
terms. The way I proposed we bridge the gap and preserve the explicit
and important commitment to a safe place to work on truly open
standards in the public interest was to create a legal bubble around
our Member Section wherein the participation and output of members
could only be contributed under the legal terms of our copyleft culture.
OASIS
was not against this in principal, since they respected the choice of
members to select their IP environment and all I was doing was
suggesting a way members could self-select and group in a larger group
rather than TC by TC. However, OASIS was unwilling to amend their
bylaws to reflect this arrangement, and since there was no other
obvious way to effectuate this goal, I proposed to LegalXML and OASIS
that we include a clause in our OASIS approved Member Section rules
that individually required every participant in a Technical Committee
(TC) formed under the LegalXML OASIS Member Section must abide by our
policy and refrain from making contributions that infracted the
policy.
Since there was no mechanism for getting individual
OASIS members and participants to agree (like a webform contract as
part of signing up to a TC), we decided to include the requirement in
the enabling charter of each TC, thereby defining and governing the
scope of authority and the valid processes of all work and arrangements
under or through that TC. So, we inserted a clause in the Member
Section that included a block-quoted statement about IP that was
required to be present in the Charter of every TC created or operating
under the LegalXML Member Section, and that paragraph was vetted,
negotiated, amended and endlessly discussed before finally being
included.
As it was reported to me, there was resistance by
representatives of certain large software companies relying upon closed
methods, proprietary licensing and continuing legal and network
controls over their products. However, in the end, since it was
difficult to prevent good government people and open source/open
standards advocates from choosing their model of participation, the
plan was accepted.
I'm pleased to share, as Chair of this TC,
that our hard fought IP language appeared in the Charter and was
carried forward into the text of the OASIS eContracts TC final,
formally approved and released eContracts 1.0 Specification. Sadly,
with the passage of years, eventually those who favor proprietary IP in
the standards context found an acceptable new plan, and the then new
now current OASIS IP Policy effectively repealed the deal between
LegalXML and OASIS that was so key to our merger. On a personal note,
it felt like the old fire of openness fueling the early Internet was
being extinguished over years with a velvet hammer. A “transition”
period was permitted by OASIS to the new policy, and our copyleft
commitment faded into the night of a long, cold winter.
But
now the spark is blinking into existence again, as part of the new
exciting times we are living into. The incoming Administration, for
example, is committed to a new brand of online public infrastructure
for civic engagement - they call it "Open Government". Check out
change.gov if you want a taste of the bright, shiny future. Many
individual and small team developers are again innovating through web
2.0 methods, community creation and relationship tools all freely
available as - in effect - public civic infrastructure. My own efforts
lately have been in creating identity and community dialog civic public
open infrastructure through the eCitizen Foundation. Open government
requires open standards and open architectures that are of, by and for
the people - not private infrastructures of standards with tolls and
checkpoints littering access and usability. And eventually, those
infrastructures benefit from the formal, mature processes of standards
making by organizations like OASIS. Will OASIS be able to evolve to
create a safe place within it’s mosaic of cultures for like spirited
people to work together in the public, open, free interests of the
people?
While there will always be an important place in the
ecology of America's and the world's economy for proprietary solutions,
a new day is dawning and the original point of the Internet as a tool
to liberate individuals, connect communities and transform society is
returning. Better ways to define public, free infrastructure for civic
engagement vs toll roads and gated communities will be needed for our
new online lives - a kind of re-zoning of cyberspace. And some of the
online space and time must be reserved as "public", "open" and "free".
That's where we will interact as civic participants, enjoying the
rights of free speech, free association, free assembly and helping our
public servants in government to better support our participation in
American self-governance.
The online infrastructures at all
levels of the stack, horizontally, vertically, diagonally and across
the business, legal, social and technical dimensions should be free,
public and open. How, after all, can a private company be ceded
ownership of the means for self-governance in a free society without
that company, itself, being an organ of government and fully
transparently accountable and responsive to the people who use the
tools for their own self-governance. Otherwise, an improper alignment
between self-interested private purposes can emerge in conflict with
the public purposes of civic engagement.
Private software
companies would do well to buy their influence in Congress, the White
House and the Judiciary by paying lobbyists, lawyers and pressure
groups like everybody else - and eventually those process should be
reformed to prevent breakdowns in the system like the current economic
crisis. But to extend the broken, closed and self-serving systems of
power to also control the matrix of standards, code and infrastructures
that comprise government of the immediate digital future is tantamount
to outsourcing the methods of sovereignty, and therefore ceding undue
influence over the possible options and results. It’s a bad idea,
because it’s both anti-democratic and anti-market, preventing the broad
participation, competition and capacity to adapt that is a hallmark of
openness in the markets of ideas and solutions.
It is better
for civic infrastructures that enable and contain public participation
in self-governance in a free society to be subject to open transparent
accountable systems and come from places like academia, non-profits and
civic groups than from large private companies because ownership and
control should be aligned in the public interest and not behind the
profit motive or a narrow special interest.
Eventually, I
imagine a cluster of standards, technologies and processes will emerge
as a suite of standards in an open architecture for online civic
engagement. At that time the stewardship of oversight and steering for
that cluster will be transferred to a quasi-public agency of some kind
- perhaps like ICANN but with broader scope and hence different and
better participation in decision making and governance. In the
meantime, as things get started at the next stage of adoption of a
networked society, use of existing open standards groups like OASIS
would be an optimal way to bridge from the past to the future. Can
OASIS adapt to meet the challenges of standards making for open, public
civic infrastructure in the information age?
I hope that one day
soon OASIS will work with members who prize openness to create more
safe bubbles or other more workable and acceptable approaches for
like-spirited people to work together in the public interest within
OASIS. Whether contained by the structure of a "Member Section", as I
legally and politically archtiected in prior years, or perhaps in some
new cross-boundary council or SIG - it's time for a change. And better
commitment openness is change we need. A broader community is needed
to work, not just isolated groups one TC at a time. Based on prior
work along, OASIS deserves the chance to evolve and adapt to the new,
better times. I encourage people who feel disgruntled by the current
IP postures to take some time to communicate, including with OASIS, to
explore potential better ways to work in the future.
Please take
heed of the underlying energy animating this thread - it is not so much
about gaining better clarity over the choice of IP in a rigid,
industrial after-the-fact comment process - I perceive it is really
about a call for change, a call for more and better methods to clearly
enable and promote openness that is not closed by proprietary ownership
and control, it's a call for OASIS to improve the culture by creating
work environments of people who share a commitment to reform that in
some way allowed easier access to a broader culture of like-minded
volunteers who want to work on standards that are open inside OASIS
and/or in alliance combination with other groups.
Sincerely,
- Dazza Greenwood
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Dazza (Daniel) Greenwood, JD
Internet: http://CIVICS.com
Email: [i don't post my e-mail to OASIS lists to avoid spam]
Mobile: +1-650-504-5474
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