Request to Director to relicense 3 abandoned SysApps WG specs

This is a request to the Director under the Relicensing Unfinished W3C  
Specifications Policy [1].

* Specifications to be relicensed *
The abandoned specifications we wish to relicense are from the SysApps WG  
[2].  The references below are to the TR (required in the relicensing  
policy) and the latest editor's draft (the one to relicense in the WG  
Note).  The request is to relicense the entire last Editor's draft for  
each specification.
1. Contacts [3][4]
2. Messaging [5][6]
3. Telephony [7][8]

* Eligibility *
1. The SysApps WG participants conducted a CfC to stop work on these  
specifications [11].
2. The SysApps WG Charter [9] expired 6 months ago.  There has been no  
attempt to recharter.  The Director has not extended the Charter.  Both  
co-Chairs have left the Working Group and no new Chair has been  
appointed.  In our view, this Working Group has expired.  There was a CfC  
among the participants of the WG asking that the WG be closed [10] (since  
it hasn't been closed by W3C in these 6 months).  That is ongoing as this  
is being written
3. All of these specifications have reached First Public Working Draft.   
These specifications are not RECS and do not contain parts of previous  
RECs.
4. There are no plans by any Working Group to adopt these specifications.   
A poll in the WG in April 2014 identified these specifications as  
candidates to drop from the WG due to lack of implementation prospects.   
It was a well known issue in the WG for these particular specs and there  
were no suggestions to move them elsewhere.  These specifications are  
intended for standalone applications, like native applications, and not  
for the usual Web security model.  They are not intended for use in Web  
Browsers.  They are in the SysApps WG specifically because they don't fit  
elsewhere.
5. The specifications were not abandoned due to patent concerns.  They  
were abandoned due to the inability to attract a second implementer and  
lack of interest by the Working Group.

* Rationale for Relicensing *
Intel Corporation contributed the initial specs which we had developed for  
use in Tizen and Crosswalk.  The specifications have now been abandoned by  
the SysApps WG (see below) and we want to be able to continue to work on  
these outside the WG.   It is a risk to contribute input specifications in  
new areas where there may not be success.  What can happen is after years  
of development in the Working Group, the Working Group decides they are  
not interested in continuing the work.  In this instance, the Working  
Group decided not to continue the work and also it seems very unlikely  
that the Working Group will continue any other work.  If the risk is too  
great that contributed work can be trapped, abandoned and unfinished in a  
Working Group, it will discourage work in W3C in specs that are in new  
areas where they may fail to maintain W3C interest.

* Choice of License *
We request use of the BSD 2 Clause License or an equivalent, compatible  
W3C license if one is available.  We do not want the default W3C Software  
License, due to possible incompatibility with moving the content to a  
Community Group where it would be licensed under the W3C CLA (not the W3C  
Software License).

* Working Group and Editor Feedback on dropping the specs and relicensing *
We conducted a CfC with the participants of the SysApps WG [11].  The  
result was no objections to dropping the specs and no objection to  
relicensing them.  All editors of all specifications responded to the CfC  
without objections.  The reference [11] links to each of the responses;  
some were forwarded so don't have the same subject line so following one  
thread would not see them all.

[1] http://www.w3.org/2014/12/relicense.html
[2] http://www.w3.org/2012/sysapps/
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-contacts-manager-api-20130307/
[4] http://www.w3.org/2012/sysapps/contacts-manager-api/
[5] http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-messaging-20130516/
[6] http://www.w3.org/2012/sysapps/messaging/
[7] http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-telephony-20130620/
[8] http://www.w3.org/2012/sysapps/telephony/
[9] http://www.w3.org/2012/09/sysapps-wg-charter.html
[10] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-sysapps/2015Mar/0009.html
[11] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-sysapps/2015Mar/0020.html

Received on Tuesday, 7 April 2015 14:20:29 UTC