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Subject: FW: Revised OASIS Membership Agreement - Draft for your Review
Hi, The eligibility rules for individuals are currently just a placeholder in the draft Member Agreement, but I think I might have issues based on the text of the announcement below. I can only comment from my own position as a consultant and individual member. My greatest involvement with OASIS is from my work with the UK Government Cabinet Office eGovernment Unit (formerly the Office of the e-Envoy). Here I work with John Borras, who is also an OASIS Director. This department is an OASIS member as are others of my customers, but I think that John was right in requesting that I also become a member to contribute on their behalf. I agree with this principle and, in this case, it led to additional memberships (he requested the same from other consultants) and to my contributing to OASIS on my own behalf. When I say "on my own behalf" I am not deriving direct benefit from my membership in the way that, say, a software company does when it influences specifications and gets advance sight of drafts. Benefit for an individual member tends to less defined - it provides good networking, I enjoy the participation and it helps with my credibility in the marketplace. This discounts the fact that there is work I could not do for John without my membership as your revised eligibility rules would appear to allow me to use the Cabinet Office membership for this. As a member, I occasionally contribute information from other Government departments when it would be beneficial to the working of OASIS. With UK Government there are rarely IPR issues in doing this. I feel that this contributes to the work of the TCs (otherwise I wouldn't do it). Sometimes these departments will join OASIS, but often this is a one-off contribution that does not warrant membership. I would be opposed to anything that prevented this contribution. It would not add to OASIS membership (perhaps reducing it if I can rely on the membership of the Government Departments that "control the contributions"). It would, however, reduce the wealth of information on existing practice on which OASIS TCs rely to produce good specifications. I can only guess what you are trying to achieve. I imagine you want to stop companies relying on the individual memberships of a few employees or long-term contractors giving them most of the benefits of membership at a reduced fee. This seems a good idea; the danger is that, unless carefully worded, an effort to increase revenue with both fail to achieve that aim and prevent consultants from using their experience of a wide range of organisations to contribute to the work of OASIS. Regards Paul Spencer -----Original Message----- From: member_services@oasis-open.org [mailto:member_services@oasis-open.org] Sent: 21 October 2004 15:57 To: paul.spencer@boynings.co.uk Subject: Revised OASIS Membership Agreement - Draft for your Review Dear Paul Spencer, In order to more reliably apply our member policies, OASIS is implementing a revised membership agreement, including some updated wording around Individual Membership in OASIS. Your feedback is important on this, so please review and respond to the mail list below. This new agreement seeks to: - Meet contractual and cultural expectations in all jurisdictions by requiring an explicit agreement signed by the member. This is a change from the previous click-through on-line agreement, and will accept either a physical or electronic signature. - More clearly identify who has IPR licensing obligations, and provide suitable documentation to ensure those obligations are met. The agreement will help assure users of OASIS standards that they can rely on the licensing obligations created by the IPR policy. - Reduce the procedural load on members in the annual renewal process. The revised agreement allows automatic renewal, where the previous agreement required members to re-confirm their membership agreement each year. - Clarify eligibility rules for Individual Members. Under the modified agreement, OASIS membership categories will specify that only persons who are acting on their own behalf, and are not contributing someone else's intellectual property (such as under a work-for-hire or employment arrangement), may join in the "Individual" member class. The objective is to better assure that the parties who actually own or control the contributions made to a TC are the ones who become members, and therefore are bound by the IPR Policy. Please review the draft Member Agreement, and its related documents at http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/members-only/download.php/9659/ OASIS%20Membership%20Agreement-%20Member%20Review%202004.10.07.pdf The draft documents can also be found at http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/members-only/index.php Send your comments and questions about the membership agreement and related documents to member-agreement-review@lists.oasis-open.org It is important that we understand your views as we seek to achieve the above goals while minimizing any negative impact on our members. Please send your comments as soon as possible, but no later than 15 November 2004. Thank you. Scott McGrath Director Member Services scott.mcgrath@oasis-open.org + 1 978 667-5115 ext 202 + 1 978-667-5114 fax www.oasis-open.org OASIS PO Box 455 630 Boston Rd Billerica, MA 01821 USA
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