OASIS IPR Policy Draft & Free Software Licensing

[Mark Johnson <mrj@debian.org>]

Hi All,

I wanted to let everyone on this list know that I'm currently in the process of 
waiting to hear from some legal counsel in the free software world as to the 
potential level of non-freeness the proposed OASIS licensing would impose on the 
works of the OASIS TCs.

I've tried to read & understand the licensing section (10) of the IPR Policy 
draft, but am lacking the legalese chops to make any meaningful sense out of the 
licensing statements. So, naturally, I punted the question to some folks (also 
OASIS members) who can provide some better insights as to the implications of 
the proposed licensing model.

I must admit that the present draft makes me a little nervous simply because I 
cannot understand the licensing content. If the proposed licensing scheme does 
indeed render some of the committee work products non-free (in any sense), we're 
going to run into some serious problems down the line. Another concern is the 
fundamental inconsistency that could arise due to the fact that we're supposed 
to be developing _open_ standards/specifications from other open standards, yet 
the OASIS-developed standards may prove not to be truly "open" if there are 
problems with the proposed licensing.

Anway, I simply wanted to give a "heads-up" that I am doing what I can to better 
understand the proposed licensing from a "free software" perspective. I'll post 
any news as soon as I receive it.

Cheers,
Mark

-- 
____________________________________________________________
Mark Johnson      <mrj@debian.org>
Debian Delegate to OASIS
Debian XML/SGML:  <http://debian-xml-sgml.alioth.debian.org>
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