[wss] Re: Please add "WSS IPR statement clarification" to the Dec11-12 F2F agenda

[Kelvin Lawrence <klawrenc@us.ibm.com>]

Hello Frank, 

I am reluctant to add an IPR discussion
to the agenda. I will attempt to explain why.  When the TC was formed
and met for the first time in September, as you will recall,  we had
very lengthy discussions about the charter and the IPR around the submissions
was also discussed  and these discussions were recorded in the minutes.
There are some basic things that I feel I need to point out or at least
revisit here.

1. OASIS has a very clearly defined
IPR policy which is published on their web site. In accordance with that
policy the submitters of the original WS-Security spec provided the IPR
statement that is currently posted to the WSS TC web page. In fact the
statement provides a lot more information than is required by the OASIS
IPR policy for submission of documents. 

2. Questions about that IPR statement
of a legal nature need to be handled by those trained to do so, namely
lawyers. For the detailed questions that you have I think you first of
all need to consult with your own legal counsel (which I believe you may
have already done). If after having done that questions remain, then we
need to get the respective lawyers connected so that they can discuss any
issues. The members of the TC (myself included) are not qualified or trained
to interpret legal documents and therefore we should not attempt to do
so during a TC meeting. 

3. The WSS TC conforms to the OASIS
IP rules.  If you have specific questions about those rules you need
to contact OASIS directly.

4. If we have this item on the agenda
we will have a group of non lawyers debating legal terms which they (a)
did not author, and (b) are not qualified to interpret and you will not
get an answer that you can rely upon. I know for a fact that the IBM folks
that attend the TC meeting will not be able to participate in any such
discussions as they are not qualified to do so. I suspect that this is
also true for the other companies' representatives to the TC.

I therefore, suggest we try as efficiently
as we can to connect your lawyer(s) with those of each of the companies
that made the IPR statement that you are referring to. Would you like me
to try and get you the contact names in each of the companies ?


Cheers
Kelvin

Frank Siebenlist <franks@mcs.anl.gov>

12/05/2002 01:11 PM

To	Kelvin Lawrence/Austin/IBM@IBMUS, Chris Kaler <ckaler@microsoft.com>
cc	wss@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject	Please add "WSS IPR statement clarification" to the Dec 11-12 F2F agenda

Could you please add "WSS IPR statement clarification"
to the agenda?

It has been 4-5 weeks since I asked the submitters for clarification of
some of the T&Cs in their WSS IPR statement.
("http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/wss/200211/msg00067.html")

I understand that in general, lawyers are unable to give quick answers,
but I was hoping to at least get an update on the status of 
the answers to my questions...

 From the private communications that I received, I have the feeling that
a number of organizations and companies are somewhat 
uncomfortable to contribute to the WSS effort while the IPR statement isn't
clear.

We would already be satisfied if we could we get an informal, oral statement
in layman's terms about the "intent" of the IPR 
statement at the F2F meeting.

Thanks, Frank.

-- 
Frank Siebenlist              franks@mcs.anl.gov
The Globus Project - Argonne National Laboratory