[xacml] XACML TC response to vote results...

[Carlisle Adams <carlisle.adams@entrust.com>]

Title: XACML TC response to vote results...

Hi Karl,

The XACML TC met today to discuss our response to the negative vote that was cast during the voting period to approve the XACML 1.0 specification as an OASIS Standard.

The reason given for the negative vote was as follows:  "We think, OASIS standards must be royalty free."  Our official response is the following:

"An implementation of any standard, in some particular way, may infringe on some intellectual property, whether that IP has been disclosed to OASIS or not. Each implementation must take appropriate steps to determine whether or not it infringes on valid IP claims.

The XACML TC has taken reasonable steps to ensure and to document that all features of this language are derived from previous work in the field that is not under patent restrictions. We intentionally made one feature of the language - Obligations - not mandatory to implement in order to make it easier for implementations to avoid a particular feature that might, in some cases, infringe on a known IP claim.

It is the belief of the TC that useful and fully-compliant implementations of XACML 1.0 can be created that are royalty free. The TC therefore requests that OASIS adopt the XACML 1.0 specification as submitted."

Please do not hesitate to contact us if there is anything further that we, as co-chairs (or we, as a TC), need to do with respect to this specification in order for it to be approved as an OASIS Standard.

Carlisle Adams, Hal Lockhart
Co-chairs, XACML TC