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Subject: Re: [oasis-charter-discuss] MOX Charter comments - Licensing


On Mon, 22 Sep 2008, William Cox wrote:

> The work is interesting and broadly applicable; surely a goal of the 
> proposers is to have it broadly used?
>
> But there's a confusing combination of RAND licensing terms and the repeated 
> statement "Other contributions will be accepted for consideration without any 
> prejudice or restrictions and evaluated based on technical merit insofar as 
> they conform to this charter." ([Sections (1)(b) and (1)(c)]
>
> On the one hand, the output will be on RAND terms (which, BTW, encompasses RF 
> with RAND terms - just with zero cost). On the other, you call for 
> contributions, say they will be "accepted for consideration" - which seems 
> vague - , and "evaluated". But I don't see "accepted". And if you "accept" 
> such contributions, that certainly will affect the RAND terms.
>
> Unless, of course, those in at the beginning plan to accept gratis 
> contributions from others that will then be licensed back to them.
>
> This does not match most familiar business models -- are  you soliciting 
> "free donations"? Will you then license them back at a fee? Who would want to 
> participate?
>
> Most confusing. This both limits effective contributions (as "other 
> contributions" have no clear path to participating in the licensing 
> discussing), and limits adoption (as competing specs will no doubt appear if 
> the licensing terms are at all burdensome).
>
> (1)(f) says that the anticipated audience/users are "SOA vendors". Again, the 
> licensing appears to make it difficult for open source projects to use the 
> planned output of the TC.
>
> Even with RF terms there can issues of distribution, where a burdensome 
> license may hinder typical packaging and redistribution, e.g., where an RF 
> license requires individual customers to access and accept a license before 
> using a product distribution from a third party. But we don't know the 
> intended (or even projected) RAND terms.
>
> In short, the combination of intended use, likely audience, and IPR terms is 
> problematic, and doesn't make sense to me in its current form. This needs to 
> be addressed in the Charter.
>
>
> bill cox
> -- 
> William Cox
> wtcox@CoxSoftwareArchitects.com
> +1 862 485 3696 mobile
> +1 908 277 3460 fax


Apropos of this message above by William Cox and another message by
"Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>

   I find it disturbing that the IPR mode is "RAND"...

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oasis-charter-discuss/200809/msg00018.html

I think it should be noted to the list that the matter of RAND IPR Mode has been
called out in another forum, explicitly mentioning that the Open
Web Foundation (OWF) has a role to play in attracting the interest of
groups that have no interest in OASIS' RAND TCs.  I think the message is
publicly readable, but in case not, I here capture its text.  On OWF, see
the summary document

Open Web Foundation (OWF)
http://xml.coverpages.org/owf.html

============================================================================

http://groups.google.com/group/open-web-discuss/t/418ae775150341d
http://groups.google.com/group/open-web-discuss/msg/6f63fdd674c82a05
http://groups.google.com/group/open-web-discuss/msg/bb9d034f0114604f

From: "Lawrence Rosen" <lro...@rosenlaw.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:48:36 -0700
Local: Fri, Sep 19 2008 6:48 pm
Subject: OASIS considering RAND working group

To: Open Web Foundation discussion list

I recently learned that OASIS may charter a working group
to standardize on the "Semantic Mapping of XML (MOX)".
Buried in the proposal [1] is the following statement:

(1)(e) Specification of the IPR Mode under which the TC
will operate.
The TC shall operate under: RAND

I hope that nobody in OWF will support or cooperate with
any such RAND working groups. In fact, this attempt by
OASIS to create a RAND working group gives OWF the
opportunity to do this kind of standardization work instead
of them. I can't imagine that many companies want to pay
royalties to practice semantic mapping of XML in industry
standard ways.

/Larry

[1]
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oasis-charter-discuss/200809/msg...
tml

cc: OASIS Board of Directors via Eduardo Gutentag

Lawrence Rosen

Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a technology law firm
( <http://www.rosenlaw.com> www.rosenlaw.com)
3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482
707-485-1242 * cell: 707-478-8932 * fax: 707-485-1243
Skype: LawrenceRosen

==============================================================================

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