The Community Group to Working Group transition, starting discussion

One of the issues the AB and the Process CG wanted to look at was the question of what issues there are in taking a document that’s developed in a CG, and continuing work in a WG, presumably to put it on the recommendation track.

Here is a starter list of issues, and some possible responses.  Let’s develop the list, and the ideas, and then we can work out what we might need to do.


1.  The CGs and WGs have different protocol for tracking patent commitments. If a CG document arrives in a WG, do we have sufficient tracking of contribution, and sufficient commitment of IPR, to minimize issues?

2.  Do we have any issues if work was first considered in a WG, and then it was realized that it ought to be given to a CG to incubate?  (Includes the reverse of #1.)

3.  There is great latitude in the CG process for how groups are run. Do we have a possible issue if a member feels that a CG document was developed in a way that was not ‘fair’ or respected due process?


Possible answers:

1.  For those organizations who contributed and are also members of the WG, then the IPR commitment will be cleared on the first exclusion opportunity/commitment in the WG. For others, we need a clear patent commitment either by (a) the entanglement being clearly a result of their own Contribution to the CG, and hence covered under the CLA; or (b) the CG gets signatures from all who might have entangled IPR, on an FSA, before the document is transitioned.

2.  I can’t think of any issues right now.

3.  In a sense, a CG input to a WG has no greater or lesser standing than a member submission. We don’t ask how a member submission was written (usually by one member).  Essentially we have a multiple-member member submission on our hands. The question of whether we think this is a good starting point seems decoupled from its provenance.  So, somewhat to my surprise, I think the formal answer is no.  However, we probably prefer that CGs not operate in ways that people think unfair, etc.


David Singer
Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.