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Subject: The sad tail of obtaining licenses for BPEL4WS 1.1mailto:eduardo.gutentag@oasis-open.org
Dear all, A sad tail about the of licensing BPEL4WS1.1. As some of you may remember the issues of licensing and license mechanisms were raised at the start of the TC. We were all assured that even though there are 5 authors of the BPEL4WS1.1 specification - the base for the TC - we should not worry. It would all be fine and the authors would figure out a way to ensure that those who are interested would be able to obtain licenses without any real hinderance. So mid Sept2003 I embarked on license discovery. A little known process to obtain the 5 license agreements from the 5 authors of the BPEL4WS1.1 specification. On the web I managed to get licenses from Microsoft (thanks) and BEA (thanks). And within a month from SAP (thanks to them also) too. IBM and Siebel had no web available licensing (as far as I could tell). I sent in a request to IBM late October, having waited passively for some information about the licenses from the TC, and (several people and emails later) I am still waiting for a license from IBM. The latest news, despite the fact that I have an outstanding email into IBM, is that a license agreement from them is on the Oasis website (dated June 2003!). Why was this not pointed out in October you may ask? A case of the X-files and standards you may think. With Siebel the plot thickens. Finally I got to someone (19th November) who seemed to know about the license issues. But ... and I know this sounds like I made it up .... I finally get a response that says: "I should have pointed you to Oasis rather than Diane Jordan at IBM." Which brings me all the way back to the original email I sent to Diane late in October. Now I feel like Bill Murray in "Ground Hog Day". It is a sad tail of how licenses and standards do not mix. I am now at a loss as to how to proceed. Seems like we now have a deadlock. The TC chairs thinking it is the authors responsibility and at least one of the authors thinking it is Oasis's responsibility. If anyone our there has actually succeeded in getting all 5 license agreements could they share the secret of their success with the group so that we may all contribute on an equal footing. As to what I think should be done as a minimum ... it is simple. Oasis should own the contact points for such license agreements and the authors should sign-up to ensuring that this sort of information is sorted out *before* they start a TC so that we can play on a level playing field. Best regards Steve Ross-Talbot Chief Scientist Enigmatec Corp. This email is confidential and may be protected by legal privilege. If you are not the intended recipient, please do not copy or disclose its content but delete the email and contact the sender immediately. Whilst we run antivirus software on all internet emails we are not liable for any loss or damage. The recipient is advised to run their own antivirus software.
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