Re: URL Collaboration derivative spec questions - was Re: PSA: Sam Ruby is co-Editor of URL spec

Anne wrote:

> I never said there was copyright issue. I said that from what Jeff and
> Wendy told me it would be in breach of the W3C Member Agreement.

[Writing with my AB and Process CG hat on, I have not discussed this reply within Microsoft]

In one of the many branches of this thread, Sam pointed to 
 http://www.w3.org/2009/12/Member-Agreement#ipr
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2007/06-invited-expert#L118
as references for Anne's concerns.  Both are largely about copyright.  If doing the joint work under CC0 prevents the work from being copyrighted, I don't see how there could be an issue about the joint ownership of copyrights text in the member agreement.

In the invited expert agreement, the referenced section does say:

"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."

Perhaps one of the attorneys on this thread could comment, but from lay perspective:
- Non-members wouldn't need to sign the invited expert agreement under the proposal to do collaborative work in a WHATWG or neutral GitHub repository rather than a HTML WG that includes a large number of invited experts.
- The whole point of the arrangement Sam proposes is to REDUCE confusion about the status of similar WHATWG and W3C specs, and to minimize the risks to interoperability if different people implement the different published specs.

Several of us on the AB believe that we need to "detoxify" the working relationship between people who prefer the WHATWG work mode and those who see value in the outputs of the W3C process. We acknowledge that W3C's traditional processes and policies -- at least as they have been executed in practice -- have been part of the problem.  But none of these are carved in stone.  If someone identifies specific text in the member agreement or invited experts agreement that makes effective collaboration harder, let's discuss how to fix them.

We're incrementally revising the process document (and will advise the team to revise other documents and policies) when bugs that cause unnecessary friction are found.  Sam's proposal, and Robin's After 5 proposal, is very much aligned with this spirit; let's find a way to make collaboration work!  

________________________________________
From: annevankesteren@gmail.com <annevankesteren@gmail.com> on behalf of Anne van Kesteren <annevk@annevk.nl>
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2014 12:46 AM
To: Michael Champion (MS OPEN TECH)
Cc: Jeff Jaffe; Philippe Le Hegaret; Wendy Seltzer; Sam Ruby; Arthur Barstow; www-archive; lehors@us.ibm.com >> Arnaud Le Hors/Cupertino/IBM; Geoffrey Creighton (LCA)
Subject: Re: URL Collaboration derivative spec questions - was Re: PSA: Sam Ruby is co-Editor of URL spec

On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 8:57 AM, Michael Champion (MS OPEN TECH)
<Michael.Champion@microsoft.com> wrote:
> Apologies if I have misunderstood Sam, Anne, or Geoffrey's positions on any of this, feel free to set me straight.

I never said there was copyright issue. I said that from what Jeff and
Wendy told me it would be in breach of the W3C Member Agreement.
Unfortunately the W3C Member Agreement is only available in draft form
and in practice is a per-organization private affair.


--
https://annevankesteren.nl/

Received on Wednesday, 26 November 2014 17:24:45 UTC