Invited expert and CG Contributor agreements

[changing the subject as this is a new can of worms]


> On Dec 16, 2014, at 10:44 , Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net> wrote:
> 
> Use case: should I ever become unemployed (to be clear: my company seems happy with me, but many companies do periodic "reductions in force" with no apparent rhyme or reason), I would still be interested in working on the URL specification; and would be willing to sign a CLA like the ASF's, but would not be willing to sign the current Invited Experts agreement.  

I assume the problematic part is this?

"The Invited Expert agrees to refrain from creating derivative works that include the Invited Expert's contributions when those derivative works are likely to cause confusion about the status of the W3C work or create risks of non-interoperability with a W3C Recommendation. «Branching» is one example of a non-permissible derivative work.”

I think this is something we are unlikely to enforce. If I own the copyright in my contributions (and I do), I cannot then be constrained in what I do with something I own, reasonably, can I?


> The wording of section 2.2 of the W3C Community Contributor License Agreement (CLA) confuses me.  In particular, the copyright grant (per section 2.1) is non-exclusive, and I (and others who make contributions) should continue to be able to do with my (and our) contributions as we like.

I think we’ll need the second paragraph explained.  It seems to say that I (Sam Ruby, David Singer) require that any derivative works that you (the W3C) makes "must include an attribution to the Specification”. I am not sure why we require contributors to constrain the W3C in this way; it seems odd to my read.

David Singer
Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.

Received on Tuesday, 16 December 2014 19:25:04 UTC