Re: Web Payments CG Charter Proposal

RE: "the actual development of decentralized technologies"

This is just a problem arising with use of the word "technologies". Under
copyright legislation in all countries, and in all international agreements
that touch on this matter, computer programs are a type of "literary work"
under the Berne Convention.  Source code exists as  “a set of instructions
or statements, expressed, fixed, embodied or stored in any manner, that is
to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring about a
specific result".

That means an expression in C such as:

#include
int main()
{
std::cout << “Hello, world!\n”;
}

. . . or in Ruby such as

for i in 1..1
puts “Hello World!”
end

...each have the same essential characteristics in law as the English
statement in pre-formatted text, such as:

Print: ?Hello World!?

If the Web Payments Community Group expresses some of its recommendations
in natural languages and other of its recommendations in computer
programming languages, it's all the same class of thing as literary works.


RE: "an openness to both proprietary and open source solutions"

Any standard is (supposed to be) neutral to business models.  Any reference
implementation of a standard is most reasonably licensed under a permissive
license (eg X11/MIT) which enables it to be easily adapted into both
restrictive and free/libre solutions.


Joseph Potvin



On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Joel Dietz <jd@evr.gr> wrote:

> Thanks Manu.
>
> From my perspective one of the most important issues raised by Paypal/Ebay
> that doesn't seem addressed in this charter is the relationship of the
> community group to the working group.
>
> The ostensible relationship that I see is that the community group issues
> a series of recommendations to the working group based on the consensus of
> the participants of the community group. Because the certain large industry
> groups will not participate (for IPR or other reasons), these will be
> liable to change at the level of the working group.
>
> At least in terms of emphasis, this new charter seems to take things in an
> entirely different direction, the actual development of decentralized
> technologies.
>
> As not much more than a lurker at this point, I don't have a tremendously
> large stake in either position (although I'd like to keep an openness to
> both proprietary and open source solutions, as we are a provider of both).
>
> Best,
>
> Jd
> ᐧ
>
>
> Joel Dietz
> Founder and CEO
> Evergreen | evr.gr | @fractastical <http://www.twitter.com/fractastical>|
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xGdTV_UMOg&hd=1
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 10, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>wrote:
>
>> Based on concerns raised by PayPal/eBay and discussions with W3C, a
>> suggestion has been raised that we think about defining the scope of
>> work that we do here.
>>
>> The downside with having a charter is that we could inadvertently turn
>> people with great Web payments ideas away from this group, or make it
>> seem like the barrier to entry is too high (or that there is a barrier
>> there when none exists).
>>
>> The upside is that we will all have a better idea of what this group has
>> agreed to work on. It may also get larger companies into the group that
>> have been standing on the side lines because their lawyers don't want
>> them to commit to potentially endless IPR commitments.
>>
>> A Web Payments CG Charter proposal has been put together that is meant
>> to be fairly lightweight from a process perspective, but provide the
>> lawyers with enough of an idea of the sort of work that we do here:
>>
>>
>> http://www.w3.org/community/webpayments/wiki/WebPaymentsCommunityGroupCharterProposal
>>
>> Feedback on this direction, changes to the charter, and general thoughts
>> in this area would be great. Keep in mind: PLEASE DO NOT BIKESHED THE
>> CHARTER, let's try to keep it simple and not let this discussion
>> distract us too much from the technical work that we need to do. That
>> said, thoughts? In particular:
>>
>> 1. Is this a good idea? Do we want a charter for this group?
>>
>> 2. Is the charter missing anything vital (keeping in mind that we want
>> to keep this group very lightweight from a process perspective).
>>
>> 3. Is there anything in the charter that should be re-worded?
>>
>> Once we have the charter in a shape where most of the group thinks we
>> should vote on it, we will use this online poll to vote on the charter:
>>
>>
>> http://vote.heliosvoting.org/helios/elections/b40f9bee-7a3e-11e3-9dd8-a2f4e5bb7f8c/view
>>
>> If 2/3rds of the voters approve of the charter, it will be approved as
>> our operating charter.
>>
>> -- manu
>>
>> --
>> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
>> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
>> blog: The Worlds First Web Payments Workshop
>> http://www.w3.org/2013/10/payments/
>>
>>
>


-- 
Joseph Potvin
Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations
The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
http://www.projectmanagementhotel.com/projects/opman-portfolio
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