Re: Invited expert - Change of policy?

On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 1:23 AM, Renato Iannella <renato@nicta.com.au> wrote:

>
> On 7 Apr 2009, at 09:44, Harry Halpin wrote:
>
>  2) For taking formal consensus etc. I'm assuming Member organizations and
>> Invited Experts will be those involved in the consensus.
>>
>> This makes sense, as both formal decisions and editorship require a level
>> of commitment, and an explicit agreement to the W3C RF Patent Policy.
>> Therefore, I would strongly advise those wishing to be deeply involved in
>> the group to apply for Invited Expert status, and expect little problems in
>> this regard. To reiterate DanBri's earlier point, the public e-mail list
>> will be open to the public (of course!) and telecons will be as well.
>>
>
>
> Isn't this worse? Are you creating a two-class system?


> Those Members/Invited Experts who decide "consensus" and the "rest of the
> participating public".?


Obviously, one cannot take consensus over an indefinite amount of people,
particularly as many people may join the list-serv and not chose to respond
to a call for consensus. Perhaps you should read the charter [1]'s "Patent
Policy" and "Decision Policy" sections, which are part of standard
off-the-shelf W3C process.

>
> It also creates an unclear IP regime as any "member of the public" can make
> contributions (without agreeing to the W3C Patent Policy) *and* without the
> need to make any disclosures?


Renato - I believe this was discussed previously to your satisfaction, but I
see unfortunately it was not cc'ed to www-archive@w3.org, a mistake I will
not make again in the future. Again, the charter makes this clear: "This XG
will not support anything for future W3C standardization that does not
conforms to the W3C Royalty-Free (RF) Patent Policy." [1]. If there are any
legal questions about whether or not public participation can jeopardize the
RF status of any W3C Recommendation coming from an XG (which, remember, does
not actually make W3C Recommendations), I would be happy to pursue such a
matter with an actual legal expert such as Danny Weitzner. In particular, I
imagine that determining whether or not non-W3C work does or does not have
RF status will be a major part of our overview of the Social Web landscape
and this will require legal inspection of non-W3C work.


>
> The solution is simple: Everyone becomes an "Invited Expert" and agrees to
> the XG Charter policy.


However, this would require everyone who participates in the public
list-serv or who speaks at the telecon to sign up to be an Invited Expert
first, and would require explicit banning of everyone who does not sign up
as an Invited Expert from the list-serv. That sort of list-serv and telecon
does not seem very public or open to me.


>
> Add appropriate links the XG page (
> http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/socialweb/) so that non-members can fill
> in a simple form to become Invited Experts (the co-chairs can vet the
> submissions)...and then they join both lists (but we only use the public
> list) so that the non-participating public can read the archives.


I would prefer to hear the comments of others before doing so.

>
> Cheers...  Renato Iannella
> NICTA
>

[1] http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/socialweb/charter
[2]