RE: [wsbpel] IPR claims and licenses

["Ugo Corda" <UCorda@SeeBeyond.com>]

Title: Message

Hi James,

 

> 1.  Contributors are not required to provide license terms until a specification that uses the contributions is up for approval. 

> It's my understanding that the approval stage for this TC is still several months away.   So the decision by the five contributors to post their terms earlier was voluntary. 

 

It was my understanding that the license terms so far published by the five submitters exclusively applied to their original contribution and did not necessarily extend to the following TC work and, in particular, to the future final specification. Your wording here seems to imply that my original interpretation was incorrect, and that those terms do indeed extend to the future final spec. Could you please confirm, and possibly point out terms of the published agreements that support your interpretation?

 

Thank you,

Ugo

 

 

Dr. Ugo Corda
SeeBeyond Technology Corporation
Standards and Product Strategies
+1-626-471-6045 (US-Pacific)

-----Original Message-----
From: James Bryce Clark [mailto:jamie.clark@oasis-open.org]
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 10:41 PM
To: wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org
Cc: karl.best@oasis-open.org
Subject: [wsbpel] IPR claims and licenses

To:  WSBPEL TC members

    Recent postings to the TC list raise questions about intellectual property licenses and availability of the TC's work.  I may be able to answer some of those questions, though probably not all.

    -- Inquiries about available IP terms --
    When the TC was first launched, by resolution and in some discussions, it asked OASIS staff to inquire, from the five co-contributors of the TC's input BPEL4WS 1.1, what license terms will be available for use of the contributed work as it may be incorporated into the standards produced by the TC.  See http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/wsbpel/200306/msg00048.html and http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/wsbpel/200306/msg00039.html. The TC members also indicated some views about what kind of terms would be desirable.
     At the time of the TC's query, not all of the contributors had posted their IPR claims or stated offered license terms.  OASIS, and various TC members, made inquiries about the terms.  As a result, all five of the contributing companies have posted specific license terms (or, in some cases, indications that no claims are made) to the public notice site for the TC's IPR:  http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/wsbpel/ipr.php.
     Although there are still some conversations going on about these terms, it is my understanding that the posted documents do represent the terms on which each of the contributors are willing to make their claimed rights available.

    -- How OASIS Policy works --
    Let me mention some principles from our IPR Policy and TC Process:
    1.  Contributors are not required to provide license terms until a specification that uses the contributions is up for approval.  It's my understanding that the approval stage for this TC is still several months away.   So the decision by the five contributors to post their terms earlier was voluntary. 
    2.   OASIS policy allows our CEO to work with any contributor to ensure that availability terms are *stated*.  We can encourage contributors to make them as simple and useful as possible.  We can enforce valid charter constraints, like an approved RF requirement, which some of our TCs have.  But otherwise OASIS isn't, and shouldn't be, in a position to mandate the terms offered for availability. 
    3.   This results in a market-based system of approval:  If users and developers find a set of restrictions agreeable, they will use the work.  If not, they won't.  If OASIS members feel that a work is so restricted or conditional that it should not be approved, they are free to say so, and to vote against it, when it is submitted for TC approval as a Committee Draft, or to the membership as a candidate OASIS Standard.  We do not police the reasons why members cast their votes. 
    4.   As we discussed last summer, while e-mail is a relatively unlimited resource, committee meeting time is not.  Ultimately, the TC operates under our policies and Robert's Rules.  The TC members themselves are collectively responsible for approving its agenda and allocating time between topics.  The use of TC time is up to the TC.  If IPR questions compete for agenda time with the technical work, lengthy discussion is unlikely to meet the needs of most participants until the final approval stage. 
   
    -- Where else to go with IP issues --
    Sally St. Amand suggested earlier today (http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/wsbpel/200403/msg00248.html) that members should "work ... on getting OASIS to get the IP issue out in the open for discussion."   That is a fine suggestion.  However, the TC's technical agenda time is not the only avenue to do so. 
    The TC has planned informal BoF sessions for those who wish to discuss license availability.  The TC mail list is available for whatever topics the participants wish to discuss.  Prospective users can *directly* communicate their views or requirements about license availability to the contributors.  (How can they adjust or react to market demand, if the market is silent?)  And finally, our Board of Directors approves and reviews our rules and procedures;  so if the constraints or rules stated here aren't working for you, you should let our Board know about it, so that they can consider changing them. 

       As a personal opinion, I agree that fewer restrictions usually leads to broader adoption.  But the entire "market" of web services and SOA is very, very young.  Realistically, no-one yet knows what kind of license models will prevail, and how various types of restriction will work in practice.  Some standards bodies have excluded commercial work by barring the door to any work with *any* license claims attached.  At OASIS there is some flexibility -- we have some projects which have no restrictions, some with a few, and some with many.   As a result, many projects call us home.  Personally I think this is a good thing, and the right way to promote standards growth and convergence. 
    I apologize for the length of this message.  Good luck with your meetings and thank you for your participation.  JBC
   
~   James Bryce Clark
~   Manager, Technical Standards Development, OASIS
~   http://www.oasis-open.org/who/staff.shtml
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