Re: [chairs] Membership for open source implementers

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

I'm not so quick to just let any project 
committer participate unless they are first 
obliged to adhere to the OASIS membership agreement.

I don't think money is the issue ... I think 
intellectual property rights are more 
important.  Contributions to the committees have 
to be unencumbered and the OASIS membership agreement attempts to address this.

Preventing people from just "joining our list and 
contributing" is not at all absurd.  As a 
committee chair I want to ensure contributions, 
through the membership agreement, are acceptable 
to use without burdening the chair to any due 
diligence.  The due diligence is covered off by 
the agreement.  Legal experts have covered all 
this in the membership terms and I don't want to 
have to be in a position to interpret them 
personally ... that is clearly not my expertise.

BTW, where in 
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php 
is "invited expert" defined?  I was unaware of 
Gabe's assertion that such a concept exists in 
OASIS parlance.  How do committees identify, 
qualify and accredit such experts without 
obligating them under the membership rules?

I hope these comments are considered constructive.

. . . . . . . . . . . . Ken  (Code List Representation TC Chair)

At 2007-04-05 22:30 +0100, Paul Fremantle wrote:
>Gabe
>
>I completely agree. I think that any committer 
>on any project actively implementing an OASIS 
>specification under an OSI license should be 
>able to apply for a Open Source Membership free-of-charge.
>
>Personally I don't think this is going to cost 
>OASIS any loss of income, but it certainly will 
>encourage a wider view of OASIS standards.
>
>Paul
>
>Gabe Wachob wrote:
>>Hi Chairs-
>>             This is a topic that’s come up for 
>> us I think at least twice. We have a community 
>> member (not an OASIS member) who is actively 
>> implementing our specification (XRI) and is 
>> interested in the spec discussion. However, we 
>> can’t let them join our list and contribute 
>> because they have to be an OASIS member. So 
>> the only answer we can give them is “pay $300 to participate”.
>>
>>             This seems absurd. Their 
>> implementation of our spec is one of the most 
>> valuable contributions to the TC’s work at 
>> this point in the lifecycle of the spec. Their 
>> feedback on implementation issues and 
>> recommendations for how to adjust the spec are 
>> absolutely critical. And yet, they are left 
>> out of the conversation. The thought of 
>> forcing them to pay $300 to participate seems 
>> a bit ludicrous, since they are already 
>> contributing (in this case, as an individual on their own time).
>>
>>             OASIS has a concept of “invited 
>> expert”. Could there be a new category of 
>> “invited open source implementer”? As I’ve 
>> said many times before, I think OASIS should 
>> be trying to facilitate Open Source 
>> implementations of the Open Standards it 
>> produces to the maximum extent it can (and to 
>> the extent its TC’s wish that to allow Open 
>> Source ­ but that’s a different discussion). 
>> You may think that $300 a year is a trivial 
>> amount of money, but for someone doing good 
>> work that benefits the OASIS community, it 
>> seems odd that we’d throw a barrier up for 
>> them to contribute even more directly.
>>
>>             I’m sure any potential abuse could 
>> be managed, just like I assume it’s managed for the “invited expert” category…
>>
>>             Alternatively, I suppose the 
>> membership of the TC could “chip in” for 
>> membership of the open source implementer, but 
>> this seems like a “hack” that raises some 
>> questions about independence of participation 
>> and potential appearance of manipulation of the membership…
>>
>>             -Gabe
>
>--
>Paul Fremantle
>VP/Technical Sales, WSO2
>OASIS WS-RX TC Co-chair
>
>http://bloglines.com/blog/paulfremantle
>paul@wso2.com
>(646) 290 8050
>
>"Oxygenating the Web Service Platform", www.wso2.com


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