Fwd: Request to Director to relicense 3 abandoned SysApps WG specs

Here's the request I made to the Director to relicense 3 of the 
abandoned, unfinished SysApps WG specs.
(sent as an example in case someone wants to do this for any of the 
other specs that reached FPWD).


-------- Forwarded Message --------
Date:  Mon, 30 Mar 2015 15:32:15 -0700
From:  Wayne Carr <wayne.carr@linux.intel.com>
To:  Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org>, Dominique Hazael-Massieux <dom@w3.org>, 
Philipp Hoschka <ph@w3.org>, Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>
CC:  w3c-archive@w3.org
Subject:  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