Membership for open source implementers

Hi Chairs-

This is a topic that’s come up for us I think at least twice. We have a community member (not an OASIS member) who is actively implementing our specification (XRI) and is interested in the spec discussion. However, we can’t let them join our list and contribute because they have to be an OASIS member. So the only answer we can give them is “pay $300 to participate”.

This seems absurd. Their implementation of our spec is one of the most valuable contributions to the TC’s work at this point in the lifecycle of the spec. Their feedback on implementation issues and recommendations for how to adjust the spec are absolutely critical. And yet, they are left out of the conversation. The thought of forcing them to pay $300 to participate seems a bit ludicrous, since they are already contributing (in this case, as an individual on their own time).

OASIS has a concept of “invited expert”. Could there be a new category of “invited open source implementer”? As I’ve said many times before, I think OASIS should be trying to facilitate Open Source implementations of the Open Standards it produces to the maximum extent it can (and to the extent its TC’s wish that to allow Open Source – but that’s a different discussion). You may think that $300 a year is a trivial amount of money, but for someone doing good work that benefits the OASIS community, it seems odd that we’d throw a barrier up for them to contribute even more directly.

I’m sure any potential abuse could be managed, just like I assume it’s managed for the “invited expert” category…

Alternatively, I suppose the membership of the TC could “chip in” for membership of the open source implementer, but this seems like a “hack” that raises some questions about independence of participation and potential appearance of manipulation of the membership…

-Gabe

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