Re: [rights] tyranny of the majority but no consensus

[Patrick Durusau <pdurusau@emory.edu>]

Bob,

The Society of Biblical Literature submitted its requirements by the 
August 7, 2002 deadline and fully expected those requirements to be 
considered in the process of formulating a requirements document. 
Despite the open call for requirements, there was apparently never any 
interest in moving beyond the initial requirements that were submitted 
at the beginning of the requirements process. As evidence of that lack 
of interest, consider that Hari has attempted to map all the submitted 
requirements to that initial set of requirements.

Hari mapped all the SBL requirements in that manner, save with the 
exception of one requirement that was simply voted not be considered, 
the requirement for a royalty free digital rights expression language. A 
requirement that I would note that benefits ALL software vendors, 
suppliers of digital content and consumers of digital content.

Even more disturbing is the willingness of a majority of the committee 
to make up the rules as it goes along. The August 7th date was the cut 
off for requirements to be submitted and now appears to be the date by 
which all requirements had to be considered and "dispositioned" in order 
to appear in the requirements document (not that any process has been 
established for drafting and approval of the requirements document but I 
doubt that troubles some members of the committee).

The needs of the MPEG standard came up in the F2F and yesterday's call 
for the Requirements SC. And who was it that created this linkage and 
started an OASIS TC too late for meaningful public participation? It 
seems odd to start a public standards process and then to complain that 
public participation is upsetting a time table prepared without any 
public participation. Public participation, in elections, standards 
bodies and elsewhere, makes reaching consensus more difficult but it 
also serves to help (not always successfully) to arrive at standards 
that serve the broadest community of interest.

The idea that new requirements can be approved later, an oft chanted 
mantra in Requirements meetings, only serves to illustrate the lack of 
concern in getting anything other than a rubber stamping of the initial 
requirements. Later requirements will be judged by those already 
adopted, for backwards compatibility purposes, and so immediately take 
on a lesser status.

The attitude of this TC on process can be summarized by paraphrasing 
Cornelius Vanderbilt:

"What do I care about process? Hain't I got the power?"

Patrick

Patrick Durusau
Director of Research and Development
Society of Biblical Literature
pdurusau@emory.edu 


Bob Glushko wrote:

> I am going to respond to the note from Mike Godwin below sent to me 
> and Hari Reddy since I doubt that Hari will.
>
> I too am appalled by the recent votes at the F2F and on yesterday's 
> conference call.  But neither surprised me.
>
> In the days before the F2F, I sent Hari several messages urging 
> restraint in the face of the mounting pressure from the MPEG 
> constituency in the TC to ignore the fact that the requirements 
> process hadn't reached consensus but he didn't reply to me. He didn't 
> reply to me afterwards either when I suggested he take steps to 
> address the bad feelings caused by the votes at the F2F.  He has 
> steadily lost the impartiality with which he began as the TC chairman 
> and now predictably sides with the "party line" as defined by Content 
> Guard and Microsoft, ignoring the fact that a substantial proportion 
> of the members are opposed to the "damn the requirements process, full 
> speed ahead" approach they advocate.
>
> The critical votes were 11 to 10 and 12 to 9 on Thursday and 10 to 8 
> yesterday.  This bare majority clearly demonstrates there is no 
> consensus for moving forward at this pace -- and also demonstrates 
> that there is little chance that a specification will be voted out of 
> the TC for submission to OASIS, since far more than 1/4 of the 
> membership will oppose it.  I am puzzled by the persistence of the 
> MPEG side given this arithmetic.  No specification will be voted out 
> of the TC without dealing with the full set of requirements submitted 
> to it.  Do the math.
>
> I understand that some of the member companies in this TC have strong 
> business interests to "get something out" but I also believed in its 
> charter.  The first goal is said to be:
>
> Define the industry standard for a rights language that supports a 
> wide variety of business models and has an architecture that provides 
> the flexibility to address the needs of the diverse communities that 
> have recognized the need for a rights language
>
> It is clear now that any community other than the MPEG is a 
> second-class citizen whose requirements will be dealt with at some 
> unspecified future time. It has been disingenuous to call for 
> participation by user organizations and by people who care about legal 
> and regulatory  issues and then vote to suppress any meaningful impact 
> of their contributions.
>
> bob glushko
>
>
>
>
>> X-Sender: mnemonic@brillig.panix.com
>> Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 22:34:46 -0400
>> To: "Reddy, Hari" <Hari.Reddy@CONTENTGUARD.COM>,
>>    "Mike Godwin (E-mail)" <mnemonic@well.com>
>> From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic@well.com>
>>
>> Gentlemen,
>>
>> I am astonished to hear that the wishes of experts contributing to 
>> the subcommittee were wholly ignored in the vote this afternoon.
>>
>> It seems clear to me that certain corporate members attended the 
>> meeting with the intention of circumventing the wishes of those who 
>> want to see the first version of the REL accurately express a full 
>> range intellectual-property rights.
>>
>> I hereby register my protest. I think this was immensely insensitive 
>> on the part of the corporate members, and am considering whether and 
>> how to publicize this subversion of a purportedly "open" standards 
>> process.
>>
>> This was the last thing I expected, given the representations that 
>> had been made to me about the subcommittee's work. In the time we had 
>> allotted this morning, I believe I demonstrated my willingness to 
>> help the committee reach a first edition of its work in a reasonable 
>> amount of time, and I point out that drawing a line with regard to 
>> submissions was my idea.
>>
>> I feel an immense sense of betrayal, and I imagine that other members 
>> do too.
>>
>>
>> --Mike
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>> "I speak the password primeval .... I give the sign of democracy ...."
>>            --Walt Whitman
>> Mike Godwin can be reached by phone at 202-637-9800
>> His book, CYBER RIGHTS, can be ordered at
>>          http://www.panix.com/~mnemonic 
>> <http://www.panix.com/%7Emnemonic> .
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> --
> Robert J. Glushko, Ph.D.
> http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~glushko
> <http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/%7Eglushko> School of Information 
> Management & Systems
> 102 South Hall
> University of California, Berkeley CA 94720-4600
>

-- 
Patrick Durusau
Director of Research and Development
Society of Biblical Literature
pdurusau@emory.edu