RE: Patent Policy issues...

>finished, and easier to watch quietly while someone else includes material that a
>troll knows they cover with IP, then walk away leaving the spec effectively
>unimplementable for anyone who doesn't license the IP - and without anyone
>even knowing, since there isn't the requirement to identify or exclude anything.

Anyone know why there aren't disclosure obligations for Member of CGs?  (why members of a CG don't have personal knowledge disclosure requirements similar to those for any W3C member reading any TR draft.) 

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Charles McCathieNevile [mailto:chaals@opera.com]
>Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 10:24 AM
>To: public-w3process@w3.org; Charles McCathieNevile
>Subject: Re: Patent Policy issues...
>
>After a bit of noodling with Art, he motivated the following thoughts.
>
>On Tue, 06 Mar 2012 13:16:35 +0100, Charles McCathieNevile
><chaals@opera.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 06 Mar 2012 13:02:12 +0100, Arthur Barstow
>> <art.barstow@nokia.com> wrote:
>> (in another thread - http://www.w3.org/mid/4F55FCC4.3090601@nokia.com

>> ff)
>>
>>> So among the problems I see are:
>>
>>> PAGs suck (time, resources, joy from the WG, etc.); the PP takes too
>>> many resources to implement for me as an AC rep and our IP
>>> department; the totality of the PP for WGs plus the CG's two patent
>>> policies are at least one patent policy too many.
>>
>> Raised ISSUE-4 on this.
>...
>>> Proposed solution #2 -> drop the PP for WGs and move WGs to use the
>>> CG patent policies
>>
>> If we don't have agreement to get to "finished", that still causes
>> problems... the CG process has some benefits, but also some drawbacks.
>
>Under the current WG policy, members participating are bound to make a
>commitment to the final product. Under the CG policy, the commitment only
>exends to contributions from the member, with there being a seperate step
>allowing them to commit to the finished spec. A plus for this is that it could allow
>a member who has useful contributions to be in the group, without having to
>hand over IP they don't want to talk about.
>
>My concern (because I think getting as much RF commitment as possible is a
>really really important goal) is that it is fairly easy to make sure the spec is not
>finished, and easier to watch quietly while someone else includes material that a
>troll knows they cover with IP, then walk away leaving the spec effectively
>unimplementable for anyone who doesn't license the IP - and without anyone
>even knowing, since there isn't the requirement to identify or exclude anything.
>
>There are nice features about the CG appraoch, like a conditional license to
>implement when the spec is in development (which is important is you want to
>get tests developed and passed). I think this should be explored further...
>
>But it depends on what the W3C membership at large want to do, and without a
>lot of motivation they might just let sleeping dogs lie...
>
>cheers
>
>--
>Charles 'chaals' McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
>     je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg kan litt norsk
>http://my.opera.com/chaals       Try Opera: http://www.opera.com

Received on Monday, 12 March 2012 20:34:05 UTC