Re: [orms] Charter proposal

[Frederick Hirsch <frederick.hirsch@nokia.com>]

+1, well stated Bill, except that OASIS legal has nothing to do with  
this, nor does the TC have to get lawyers involved.

  The TC determines the charter - IPR obligations are incurred based  
on essential claims to the final standard as detailed in the IPR  
policy. We are not chartering based on unknown possible IPR obligations.

It is not the TCs job to work legal issues. Participant companies may  
decide to have internal legal discussions, but the bottom line is  
that it is their contractual obligation to adhere to the membership  
agreement that references the OASIS IPR policy. Thus participants are  
required to follow the IPR policy, which can include incurring  
licensing obligations and licensing under the TC IPR mode, in this  
case RF on limited terms.

If we have to make decisions we can follow the OASIS TC Process and  
vote, even though consensus is always desirable (and even in that  
case we should vote to record the decision).

Have any TC members disclosed any IPR yet? Should there be any  
additional disclosures? I see nothing on the TC disclosures page:  
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/orms/ipr.php .

regards, Frederick

Frederick Hirsch
Nokia



On May 14, 2008, at 3:14 PM, ext Barnhill, William CTR USAF AFMC AFRL/ 
RIGA wrote:

> Hi Nat,
>
> While I understand and sympathize that this may create issues, the  
> practice of clarifying a TC's charter while the TC is in its  
> infancy is a standard one. I believe someone (don't remember who)  
> mentioned that every TC they knew of had clarified their charter in  
> their first few meetings. That is also my experience.
>
> Further comments inline:
>
> ________________________________________
> From: n-sakimura@nri.co.jp
> Sent: Wed 5/14/2008 10:05 AM
> To: orms@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: RE: [orms] Charter proposal
> Here is my observation on on the activities trying to change the  
> Charter text after a bit of contemplation.
>
> 1.	There has been a period that you could amend the charter. You  
> have not acted during the period.
>
> [Bill] You are right, but our understanding of what was intended by  
> the charter gelled at the F2F not before, so it seems unlikely that  
> any charter questions would be dealt with before the F2F.
>
> 2. By becoming a member of the TC after the period, all the member  
> have agreed to the Charter text and the IPR. This is a binding  
> contract. If the text is changed, you have to go back to your legal  
> department etc. to get an approval again.
>
> [Bill] I believe that it is contract with the single obligation  
> that IPR that fall in the scope of the charter must be released  
> under the TC's adopted IPR policy.  I don't believe it is a  
> contract that you must refrain from changing the charter. If the TC  
> as a majority feels it is a sufficient enough change to change  
> scope (i.e. one or more of the lawyers consider it sufficient) then  
> we would need to re-charter. If a minority feel it is a scope  
> change then I don't know what happens.
>
> 3.	It is not a sound behavior trying to change the contract text  
> just after having singed it. Trying to change the charter text at  
> the outset of the TC is akin to this.
>
> [Bill] As I mentioned above, the charter is a work in progress even  
> as the TC is in it's early stages. The first version at the first  
> meeting defined the IPR scope, but it can and usually does get  
> clarified to a fair-thee-well.  If it's a scope change is when the  
> lawyers have to get involved again, and again I believe that is up  
> to the TC (with veto powers by OASIS legal if OASIS disagrees?  
> Don't know, somebody should ask Mary on that one).
>
> 4.	Therefore, I am against any change to the text of the normative  
> portion of the charter. The charter clarification should be limited  
> to be an acknowledgement of ambiguity in the actual text and the  
> accompanying footnote for the clarification of the actual text/ 
> wording.
>
> [Bill] I certainly understand that position, but am against keeping  
> the word score. We are giving birth to a standard that, like  
> OpenID, has the potential to change the face of the web. Not  
> clarifying the charter at this point is to me like a mother not  
> watching what they eat while they are pregnant: if we do not do it  
> now then we are setting ourselves up for defects in the standard  
> and/or its implementation in the future.
>
> 5.	As the result, it is not plausible to change the text scores to  
> something else. We could put a footnote to explain what scores  
> really is, but not changing the normative text itself.
>
> [Bill] See answer to #4.
>
> I suggest ourselves to limit what we do against the charter to  
> footnotes. Modifying the charter text is not something that we  
> should do now. That is something you had to do in the past.
> [Bill] I thought we had a majority consensus around the reputation  
> values proposal, with you, Tony, and Chris against it. It sounds to  
> me like you are saying there is no way you will change your mind on  
> having score (strongly implying a single value reputation IMHO)  
> rather than reputation value of some other proposal. If that's the  
> case we're deadlocked and we need to decide what to do next.
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from this mail list, you must leave the OASIS TC that
> generates this mail.  You may a link to this group and all your TCs  
> in OASIS
> at:
> https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/portal/my_workgroups.php
>