Re: [Minutes] DID WG 2020-11-17

Hi Ted,

I have seen Brent's response to this mail, and his promise to come back with some more detailed answers later today. I do hope this will help. Let us acknowledge, however, that the slides he'd produced were 'just' a heroic attempt from a non-lawyer to give an overview of the changes, aimed at accompanying a discussion at a virtual F2F meeting. That discussion has, b.t.w., been minuted[1] (through the non-less heroic contribution of the minute takers:-), and the proposed resolution of yesterday reflected that preliminary discussion. I hope that those minutes, as well as the upcoming clarification of Brent, will help in dissipating your unease and finalizing your opinion.

However. We should realize that it is not up to this Working Group to get into some sort of an official or inofficial review of the new PP itself. I hear you on the difficulties to grasp the process and PP changes overall, but the technical experts on this WG must rely on the preparatory work that had been pursued for a long time (through several TPAC breakouts, email and github discussions, etc) leading to the formal adoption of the new W3C Process and the PP by the W3C AC members. We have to trust our AC representatives to have done the proper job in making PP2020 official by now.

The only question that this WG has to decide, legal details put aside, is whether the central value proposal of the new PP is of an importance enough for this WG to move to PP2020 or whether it decides to complete its work relying on the current PP. In general, this decision must be taken accepting the practical hurdles of formal rechartering, but this would be simplified if we decide to move now to a simple re-joining the group[2]. The central value proposal I was referring to is that the PP protection for would-be implementers of our spec, that usually comes into effect once the Recommendation is published, would also be extended for the CR period of the document's evolution. In other terms, our CR implementers may do their work without any fear of facing patent issues from other members. If that protection is important for the members of this group, then the new PP should be adopted; if it is of no interest for the group then we can close this discussion and the group continues its work without any further ado. The legal details underlying this change is not for this WG to work out.

I also hear you that there may be questions as for the way the PP changes are put forward by the W3C, whether the materials are appropriate for the members to understand the changes, etc. I would propose that you raise these issues with the relevant process group at W3C (which I see you have already done regarding one specific issue, thank you for it). You may also want to contact Philippe le Hégaret or Wendy Seltzer from the W3C team directly; I am sure all people active in working out the changes would welcome any opportunity to improve those materials. 

I hope this helps…

Ivan


[1] https://www.w3.org/2019/did-wg/Meetings/Minutes/2020-11-04-did#section2 <https://www.w3.org/2019/did-wg/Meetings/Minutes/2020-11-04-did#section2>
[2] If the move is decided, say, in 2 months, which is entirely possible, then a formal rechartering of the WG will become necessary with a 4 weeks AC vote and all that jazz… Doing it now means a blanket rechartering of the relevant groups by the W3C Management in December with the only action remaining for all members to formally re-join the group. That is a one-time action to ease the transition.


> On 18 Nov 2020, at 02:25, Ted Thibodeau Jr <tthibodeau@openlinksw.com> wrote:
> 
> Greetings --
> 
> My frustration around this new Patent Policy has grown since 
> today's call. Hopefully it will shrink with the response to 
> this message.
> 
> Could someone please translate the following (from the Virtual 
> TPAC slidedeck, slide #81) for me?
> 
> https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1RoE8E4y8S1j65EJaXZ8oihkduNbjTXXvdwtkzw961Xw/edit#slide=id.g9f4c7913d4_97_49 <https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1RoE8E4y8S1j65EJaXZ8oihkduNbjTXXvdwtkzw961Xw/edit#slide=id.g9f4c7913d4_97_49>
> 
>> Section 4 has the most changes, we’re not going to go into
>> them in detail here.
>> 
>> These are the changes that are most important for member
>> companies to review.
>> 
>> These changes are all related to the ability of a working
>> group to now produce several, subsequent patent review drafts.
> 
> 
> 
> What are the antecedents for the "These" in the 2nd and 3rd 
> paragraphs? They seem to be different. One is likely to refer 
> to the changes in Section 4, mentioned in the first paragraph, 
> what of the other? And which is which?
> 
> Is this slide trying to say that the changes (from other 
> sections of the PP) covered in detail on the preceding 
> slides were the most important?
> 
> Or that the changes (from Section 4) *not* covered in detail 
> are the most important?
> 
> Or something else?
> 
> Based on the screencaps in the preceding slides, it seems likely 
> that the Patent Policy document revision was done on github, and
> that I should therefore be able to view a DIFF between the old
> and new documents there, optimally both pre- and post-ReSpec, 
> but sufficient if only as HTML markup (i.e., pre-ReSpec).
> 
> But maybe that visibility is restricted to members of some WG or
> other to which I do not belong.  (Which would be another point
> of contention, but I'll leave that for now.)
> 
> The W3C is *supposed* to be a technical organization, working on
> and with technical tools, and should *not* reduce membership to
> visually comparing printouts, nor effectively make each member 
> org jump through similar if not identical technological hoops 
> to get digital copies of the old and the new off the web and 
> into whatever comparison tools they might have available (Word, 
> diff, etc.), and so on. I really hope there's a DIFF page that's
> already created and available for showing to anyone relevant,
> including AC Reps who have to approve it, and WG members who 
> have to work within it.
> 
> The current state of affairs makes it impossible for me to make 
> a simple approve/reject recommendation, nor to provide a clear
> comparison of old vs new to OpenLink's AC Rep, upon which they 
> can base a quick decision.
> 
> Can anybody help me out here?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ted
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> A: Yes.                          http://www.idallen.com/topposting.html <http://www.idallen.com/topposting.html>
> | Q: Are you sure?           
> | | A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
> | | | Q: Why is top posting frowned upon?
> 
> Ted Thibodeau, Jr.           //               voice +1-781-273-0900 x32
> Senior Support & Evangelism  //        mailto:tthibodeau@openlinksw.com <mailto:tthibodeau@openlinksw.com>
>                              //              http://twitter.com/TallTed <http://twitter.com/TallTed>
> OpenLink Software, Inc.      //              http://www.openlinksw.com/ <http://www.openlinksw.com/>
>          20 Burlington Mall Road, Suite 322, Burlington MA 01803
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> Universal Data Access, Integration, and Management Technology Providers
> 
> 
> 
> 


----
Ivan Herman, W3C 
Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
mobile: +33 6 52 46 00 43
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0782-2704