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


Also, upon further thought, I'm trying to think that the problem you have is
that contributors to the final report or any other deliverable might try to
sneak in non-RF work. Is that correct?

Now, I'm noting that a deliverable can contain references to non-RF work,
and as the deliverable is an overview, it's OK for it to have references to
non-RF work as long as it doesn't recommend those for future W3C
standardization. However, what if some malicious party tries to recommend
non-RF work for future standrardization? That is a legitimate problem.

The other problem that I have is that by forcing everyone on the public list
to jump on an Invited Expert, we would exclude sections of the wider
community and make cross-list posting and public participation on the  list.

Perhaps we could address the issue by taking on-board two bits of process:

1) We ask for a lawyer to help us determine the RF status of certain social
web work. I don't know who, perhaps Rigo, as this may fall under the remit
of his work with PrimeLife. Perhaps he has already done such work.
Otherwise, we will need some neutral lawyer to check these things out as
needed.

2) Both editors and "contributors", as in contributor of actual pieces of
text, diagrams,  or code samples, to the final report and deliverable have
to agree to the RF policy explicitly by being invited experts.

This can be done process-wise by having every editor and contributor to the
final report and other deliverables sign up as Invited Experts, and then
their work on the exact word-smithing of the documents can be posted
directly to the member-only list (which would require Invited Expert status)
and then *everything* can be cc'ed to the public list.

Does that address the concerns Renato? In this way, we make sure the
documents do not recommend any non-RF work for future standardization, while
maintaining our work in the public list and having a public list that anyone
can contribute to easily, without filling out any forms.


> Cheers...  Renato Iannella
> NICTA
>
>
>