RE: An article on a different type of light weight standards development process

Larry,

I'm glad you raised this, because it may be that I don't understand the
scope of this effort, although I expect that the reality may be that we're
looking at a spectrum of possible projects rather than either software
(only) at one extreme and standards (only) at the other.  Where we are
talking about the software extreme, OSI approved license would be perfectly
acceptable, and we could just talk about best practices in additional
documentation (e.g., c contribution agreements, etc.).  At the other
extreme, where we are talking about a pure standard with no embedded code,
an open source license would be, in my opinion, not only inappropriate but
counter productive, as it would raise unnecessary angst among traditional
technology company participants and implementers.  I would not assume that
there will not be projects of interest to W3C (and vis-versa) that are not
purely standards activities, as these activities already do exist.

That leaves, of course, the middle ground, where a given project could be
mostly, but not completely, one or the other.  And some trailblazing in
that domain could be independently useful in addition to making a proper
home for such efforts within W3C.

As you and I know from past discussions, this is a very complex issue, so
I'd suggest that we add this to a call agenda rather take it the next step
by email, as we could sink many hours in that pursuit, and it would
probably work better as an interactive call involving all in any event.

public-vision-newstd-request@w3.org wrote on 06/15/2010 07:40:49 PM:

> Hi Andy,
>
> I'm confused about the word "standards" in the subject of your
> email: "RE: An article on a different type of light weight standards
> development  process". Probably that is because I am a software
> lawyer, familiar now with "The Apache Way", with not much experience at
W3C.
>
> In Open Web Foundation and for the light-weight standards we are
> trying to support in that venue, the distinctions between standards and
> software are blurred. As we see it, engineers write software to
> prototype and document what they subsequently incorporate into
> standards. Or vice versa. (Some of us describe it informally as
> "standard setting in a bar setting.") Ultimately many of the words
> of those standard specifications are embedded into software
> implementations and its documentation, with little regard to what is
> "text" and what is "code" or which came first.
>
> W3C needs a way for such informal creative efforts to thrive within
> a structured and permissive and supportive environment. In this
> context, the arbitrary distinctions between specifications and
> software, which are invisible by merely looking at it anyway, become
> particularly unhelpful. Therefore, for ease of analysis, I propose
> that we view the intellectual property portions of this W3C
> Incubation effort as an open source software licensing transaction
> (or set of transactions) in the form of license grants for
> copyrightable (code and text) contributions turned into published
> specifications, and for associated patent claims.
>
> If you can identify other specific salient characteristics of
specifications
> that are different from mere software, perhaps we can discuss ways
> to get around such distinctions. For example, there are ways to
> prevent any final W3C specification itself from being forked, even
> without inhibiting free software. PSIG is considering such a license
> for HTML5 specifications which, if done right, will contain both
> free code and free text when they are published.
>
> At a conference in Helsinki last week, I learned a new term: "Agile
> Development". (New to me, at least!!!) I was too busy talking in
> another track to learn much about it, but the general idea seems to
> be that engineers and their managers are finding ways to be nimble,
> with as little up-front legal and process burden as possible, while
> they invent and market successful products. Larger companies are
> aware of IP risks, of course, but they don't want their employees'
> inventiveness to be delayed by up-front standards scoping or by
> lengthy reviews of potential patent commitments. So we lawyers need
> to create new models by which software and specifications grow
> faster than lawyers can keep up with. And also everyone agrees that,
> at least for these agile standards, they must be royalty free for
> both open source and proprietary implementations.
>
> That's what I visualize in a light-weight W3C standards process.
>
> Best regards,
>
> /Larry
>
>
> Lawrence Rosen
> Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a technology law firm (www.rosenlaw.com)
> 3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482
> Cell: 707-478-8932
> Apache Software Foundation, member and counsel (www.apache.org)
> Open Web Foundation, board member (www.openwebfoundation.org)
> Stanford University, Instructor in Law
> Author, Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property
Law
> (Prentice Hall 2004)
>
>
>
> From: public-vision-newstd-request@w3.org [mailto:public-vision-
> newstd-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Andrew.Updegrove@gesmer.com
> Sent: Saturday, June 12, 2010 12:21 PM
> To: public-vision-newstd@w3.org; public-vision-newstd-request@w3.org
> Subject: An article on a different type of light weight standards
> development process
> <snip>
>

See the new Gesmer.com http://www.gesmer.com

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