Re: [chairs] Comments and IP

[Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net>]

Jamie,

James Bryce Clark wrote:
<snip>

>     Perhaps I should raise this concern with our Board's IPR 
> committee.  JoAnn and Patrick, do you think we're missing significant 
> amounts of specification input from people who would give it, if it 
> were easier to assent to our feedback terms?   Do we have some reason 
> to believe that the forms are a turn-off?
>     

Yes, but non-comments are always hard to quantify.

Not using email mechanisms to make comments acts as a deterrent to 
comments on OASIS standards. (I think most people expect to make 
comments using email.)

For ODF, there have been 12 comments posted since 1 Jan. 2006 until 
today. Given the amount of activity in the bloggersphere and elsewhere, 
I find that amazingly low. 12 comments in 3 1/2 months?

All of the comments for the past year total 114. Not that I think ODF is 
a real page-turner but given the general level interest I think those 
numbers look low as well.

JoAnn, have you had a similar experience?

Begin with the IPR committee? Wouldn't it be easier to ask whichever 
committee can authorize a change in the comment process? As you say, 
there are no ironclad IPR releases in an electronic environment, person 
agreeing is underage, under some legal disability, etc., so duplicating 
the notice with recorded response agreeing in an email list subscription 
is about as close you can get. I think that would be apparent to the 
committee that can authorize the change in the comment process.

Hope you are looking forward to a great weekend!

Patrick

-- 
Patrick Durusau
Patrick@Durusau.net
Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model
Member, Text Encoding Initiative Board of Directors, 2003-2005

Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!