Thanks for bringing up these issues, Bill,
To be honest, I have not followed this discussion as closely as I
should have, so let me make it clear that my own participation hinges
upon the adoption of a 'Royalty Free' (RF) IPR policy, of which I
prefer RF on RAND.
Best Regards,
Rex
At 10:34 PM -0400 9/23/08, William Cox wrote:
>I would like to make it clear that RAND is a perfectly acceptable
>IPR policy under OASIS rules (and that I have no objection to RAND
>terms if the IPR holders want to use them). My concerns are
>
>(1) The draft charter is confusing (as called out in my earlier,
>on-time email) around contributions and evaluations; I don't recall
>seeing such an open call in RAND proposals;
>
>(2) The issue of acceptance and licensing are, in my experience,
>closely related. Limiting adoptions tends to lead toward lowered
>acceptance, and has on occasion led to competing specifications and
>loss of commonality in the technology area.
>
>bill cox
>
>William Cox wrote:
>>The work is interesting and broadly applicable; surely a goal of
>>the proposers is to have it broadly used?
>>
>>But there's a confusing combination of RAND licensing terms and the
>>repeated statement "Other contributions will be accepted for
>>consideration without any prejudice or restrictions and evaluated
>>based on technical merit insofar as they conform to this charter."
>>([Sections (1)(b) and (1)(c)]
>>
>>On the one hand, the output will be on RAND terms (which, BTW,
>>encompasses RF with RAND terms - just with zero cost). On the
>>other, you call for contributions, say they will be "accepted for
>>consideration" - which seems vague - , and "evaluated". But I don't
>>see "accepted". And if you "accept" such contributions, that
>>certainly will affect the RAND terms.
>>
>>Unless, of course, those in at the beginning plan to accept gratis
>>contributions from others that will then be licensed back to them.
>>
>>This does not match most familiar business models -- are you
>>soliciting "free donations"? Will you then license them back at a
>>fee? Who would want to participate?
>>
>>Most confusing. This both limits effective contributions (as "other
>>contributions" have no clear path to participating in the licensing
>>discussing), and limits adoption (as competing specs will no doubt
>>appear if the licensing terms are at all burdensome).
>>
>>(1)(f) says that the anticipated audience/users are "SOA vendors".
>>Again, the licensing appears to make it difficult for open source
>>projects to use the planned output of the TC.
>>
>>Even with RF terms there can issues of distribution, where a
>>burdensome license may hinder typical packaging and redistribution,
>>e.g., where an RF license requires individual customers to access
>>and accept a license before using a product distribution from a
>>third party. But we don't know the intended (or even projected)
>>RAND terms.
>>
>>In short, the combination of intended use, likely audience, and IPR
>>terms is problematic, and doesn't make sense to me in its current
>>form. This needs to be addressed in the Charter.
>>
>>
>>bill cox
>
>--
>
>William Cox
>wtcox@CoxSoftwareArchitects.com
>+1 862 485 3696 mobile
>+1 908 277 3460 fax
>
>
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Rex Brooks
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