RE: The Vocabulary, Schema.org governance, etc.

First: I applause the job being done by all people on the list, by all people working for the founding “fathers” (aka organizations) or schema.org.

Just out of curiosity:
Is there a problem why not w3c (or any other organization, although w3c seems most natural) could govern the vocabulary being displayed on schema.org?

Since the work being done is as open as possible, what steps has to be made to make it even more open?
As it looks now, it feels as the work begin done is for an open, transparent and a non-profit organization.

Trond

From: paoladimaio10@gmail.com [mailto:paoladimaio10@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Paola Di Maio
Sent: 24. september 2014 08:15
To: Renato Iannella
Cc: Dan Brickley; Peter Mika; Guha; W3C Vocabularies
Subject: Re: The Vocabulary, Schema.org governance, etc.

Renato, glad you are making the point
(somebody has to do it)

Our  friends who now work for big search engines are doing this
with best intentions, I have no doubt, and the work is good and I am grateful that they are graciously enganging in community participation via this list

Business decisions  however are not made by the Dans, the Guhas and the Peters in this world but by corporations they work for -
( a lot of these open and participatory initiatives are just window dressing  giving the illusion of democracy and change, while decisions are made
under the radar by the few anyway)

The community should be aware that somewhere down the line
employees retire/get sacked, and new employees take over, and corporations
make decisions for commercial interests of majority shareholders, even if the current stakeholders are good natured, and promise not to do evil, shareholders change, and things are turned around without anyone even noticing!

While I am confident the process at hand is good enough for the moment, it could be wise to help the sponsors devise a less tricky  ownership/copyright statement for the long term sustainability of the project

Make suggestion for a more acceptable wording perhaps (would changing that sentence satisfy your concern?),  and test how open  and participatory the initiative really is :-)

PDM




PDM

On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 6:00 AM, Renato Iannella <ri@semanticidentity.com<mailto:ri@semanticidentity.com>> wrote:

You have misinterpreted the point Dan/Peter.

We _all_ know things change - that's why an open and transparent Governance process is important.

If something changes, then there is a clear and open process on why/how this is handled, and the impact to all stakeholders.

The "with or without notice to you" approach - entrenched into the legal Terms of Service - is not such an open process.

Cheers...
Renato Iannella
Semantic Identity
http://semanticidentity.com

Mobile: +61 4 1313 2206<tel:%2B61%204%201313%202206>