Re: [oasis-charter-discuss] MOX Charter comments - Licensing

[William Cox <wtcox@CoxSoftwareArchitects.com>]

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