Re: [chairs] Reminder: Q&A on new OASIS policies

["David RR Webber" <david@drrw.info>]

Karl,

Thank you for organizing todays' session.

I have one supplemental question.

What about TC's that are not creating specifications? - eg

e-Government TC, IHC TC, and then others like the docbook TC,
TAX TC (which government regulations direct), XSLT and IIC test
suites.  

It seems odd - since you cannot patent these things - that they 
should have to operate with rules that assume patents are in effect?

For example how could say the IT Director for the Government of Ireland
join the e-Gov TC and sign an agreement stating that he or she will
be abiding by the IPR policies and assigning licenses to the TC?  I have
a suspicion that such people would not be able to get their internal
legal folks to sign-off on that, and / or it would take months to get
an answer.

Similarly how could the IRS have personnel sign agreements that
OASIS has licensing rights over components, and that members
IPR claims may have to be licensed before the IRS could use
those technologies, which the government is regulating and is 
covered by Acts of Congress in the first place?

We clearly do not want to be adopting policies that mean that
certain TC's will cease to be able to function.

In fact - is there a provision here that can state that where 
conflicts occur for existing TC's that would cause them to 
be unable to carry out the terms of their existing charters
that such TC's can maintain that status-quo (eg backward
compatibility will not be broken) and continue to operate
until such time as their work in complete and their chartered
tasks finished.

Thanks, DW