Re: Draft W3C Community Group IPR policy for your consideration

Ian,

A few comments.


> [![W3C][1]][2]
> 
> # [Draft] IPR Policies for New Standards Proposal
> 
> Status of this Document
> 
> This is the IPR portion of the the [new standards task force proposal][3].
> This proposal provides a funtional description of an "IPR Progression" so that
> Community Group participants have IPR protection, and facilitates the
> transition to a future Working Group. This is not a draft legal agreement;
> more work will be required to turn this proposal into actual legal agreements.
> 
> Although the Editor has discussed this document within the PSIG, this is not a
> PSIG document, nor has the PSIG expressed any endorsement of it.
> 
> #### On This Page → 
> 
>   * [Policy][4] • 
> 
>   * [FAQ][5] • 
> 
>   * [Notes and Todos][6]
> 
> ## Policy
> 
> The policy involves two stages of commitments over a Community Group
> specification designed to satisfy a set of [policy goals][7]. The commitments
> are:
> 
>   * [Contributor Agreement up Front][8]
>   * [Full Specification Commitment at End][9]. The commitment at this stage
> also provides a bridge if the specification later moves to the Recommendation
> track.
> 
> General notes on commitments:
> 
>   * Working Group charters set expectations for the scope of licensing
> commitments in that group. Community Groups do not have charters. Community
> Group participant commitments are scoped by what is in a specification.


I suggest:

   * Community Groups (unlike Working Groups) do not have charters. 
     Working Group charters set expectations for the scope of licensing 
     commitments in that group. Community Group participant commitments 
     are scoped by what is in a specification.

The "what is in" is a bit nebulous. Is it a boilerplate text? Is it the technical content? etc. 



>   * In a Working Group, all participants make a commitment for any deliverable
> of the group (roughly speaking). In a Community Group, a participant may make
> different patent commitments for different specifications published by the
> same Community Group.
> 
>   * As it does for Working Groups already, W3C will make available publicly
> the the history of commitments over each Community Group specification.

s/the the/the/ 

> ### Contributor Agreement up Front
> 
> Upon joining a group, a participant's employer(s) sign a Contributor Agreement
> (CA). The signatory of this agreement makes the following commitments:
> 
>   * A (copyright) grant to reuse text, including in derivative works. (There
> still needs to be a discussion about what license or licenses are available,
> especially in light of the HTML5 Document License discussion. There will be an
> attribution requirement, for instance.)
> 
>   * The signatory chooses one of the following two options:
> 
>     * A (patent) grant of, after a window (e.g., of 60 days), an irrevocable
> non-assert regarding essential claims owned by the employers, for any
> contribution made by the participant. The set of granted patent claims and the
> scope of the permitted uses are limited to implementations of the
> specification or of any derivative specification that subsequently advances to
> the W3C Recommendation track. The grant does not extend to claims or uses in
> implementations beyond the specification.
> 
>     * No grant. (In a community group that is not producing a specification,
> this is likely to be the favored lightweight option. In a community group that
> is producing a specification, this will serve as a red flag for participants.)
> 
> **Note:** If an individual participant is unemployed, the individual signs the
> Contributor Agreement.


I might have misunderstood the criteria, but…

One of the shoe stone for participants to groups at W3C is when you are employed by let say a big corporate, Acme VoiceTech Inc., with a big patent portfolio but you want to participate as an *individual*. (The person could be a Webmaster of this company, or the accountant who just happen to be passionate about Web technologies).

> #### Other Commitments on Joining
> 
>   * All individuals agree to W3C's Conflict of Interest Policy. For instance,
> if an individual's employment status changes while participating in the
> Community Group, the individual must inform W3C. W3C may request that the new
> employers sign the CA.

Same comment than above, your employment history might limit your participation. You are in a very small company, or unemployed then you join a big company in a department not related to Web stuff for your daily job and you still want to participate. You can't anymore.

Would it be possible to just say "I'm employed by this company but I participate individually"? It raises a red flag to the community group, saying there is a risk without totally blocking participation.


> ### Full Specification Commitment at End
> 
> At any time (and necessarily before a specification may move to the standards
> track), the Community Group participants may publish a stable draft and call
> for all Community Group participant employers to make the next level of
> **voluntary** commitment. The commitment has two aspects, one pertaining to
> the specification produced by the Community Group, and one pertaining to
> subsequent Recommendations based on the Community Group specification. The two
> parts are:
> 
>   1. an irrevocable non-assert regarding any claims owned by the Participant
> that are essential to implementing the Community Group specification;
> 
>   2. a [W3C Royalty-Free License][10] for the same claims, extended to
> implementations of a W3C Recommendation **provided that** the claims are
> essential to implementing the Recommendation (as they were for the Community
> Group Specification).
> 
> The decision to move a specification to the standards track will be influenced
> by, but not automatically determined by, the extent of organizational non-
> asserts. The W3C staff is responsible for informing Community Group
> participants when a specification has been taken up in a Working Group, and
> for tracking all commitments.

The W3C staff of the Working Group which takes over the specification?


> #### Notes on Disclosure Obligations


no comments on the rest of the documents.


-- 
Karl Dubost
Montréal, QC, Canada
http://www.la-grange.net/karl/

Received on Thursday, 30 September 2010 14:51:09 UTC