Re: Proposal for issue 327

David Fallside wrote:

>Issue 327 expresses a number of concerns regarding IP [1]. I propose to
>close this issue by noting that (a) the concerns will be covered as part of
>W3C's normal process of evaluating IP during the Recommendation track, and
>(b) discussion of IP matters is generally intended to take place outside
>WGs -- hence the PAG mechanism for handling a WG's serious IP issues -- and
>so the LC issue list is not the place to lodge the issue.
>  
>
It is not clear to me that "discussion of IP matters is generally 
intended to take place outside WGs."  It is the job of the WG to produce 
a spec that conforms to the charter, and the IP requirements are 
requirements that should be taken into account.  It is clear that it 
must take place outside of the WG if the WG has not been able to resolve 
the problem.  But I think the WG should be the first line of defense.  I 
could be understanding something wrong here, though.

I think that the WG must try to receive more information from those who 
think they have IP that is applicable and try to resolve the problem. 
 The last call issue was raised by me, and I was not the first to 
question the statements that had been made by some participants which 
seemed problematic if a RF (zero cost) specification was the goal.  It 
seems to me that the working group should come to one of the following 
conclusions:

1.  The WG feels that there is no problem and vote to decree that there 
is no real problem here, so the specification will go forwards and W3C 
may choose to form a PAG if they disagree.

2.  There is a potential problem, and they will work on it with the 
members who made the statements that seem to be a problem to determine 
the nature of the claims that may need to be paid for to implement SOAP.

3.  There is a potential problem, and the WG is not able to deal with 
it, so they will call for a PAG to try to resolve the problem.  In 
another case, the result of the PAG and W3C actions has been to throw it 
back to the WG to ferret out the problems and solve them.

The LC was where I thought people were supposed to try to get a 
resolution on this sort of concern.  Then, I may not understand the 
current practices correctly.

Ray Whitmer
rayw@netscape.com

Received on Monday, 7 October 2002 15:47:03 UTC