Re: SVG2 Accessibility User Agent Implementation Guide

On 31/03/2014 1:42 PM, Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote:
> If members of the SVG WG hold relevant "IP" and do not join the PFWG, 
> how would this arrangement help ensure implementations can follow the 
> guide under RF terms? 
By tying the deliverable to a single Working Group that everyone joins, 
we are getting clear patent commitments from the people who join the 
work. The alternative is a joint task force in which some people have 
made a PF patent commitment, and others have made an SVG patent 
commitment - it's more vague about what the actual commitment to the 
specific work is.

In W3C, patent commitments only apply to the specific work you're 
involved in, and have made a commitment to. You're saying "I promise not 
to introduce features that my company has a patent claim on". However, 
it is always a possibility that, while the people working on a spec have 
been careful about that, some other Member organization that is not 
participating does still have a patent interest, even though they 
themselves did not introduce the feature. To catch this, there is a 
formal W3C-wide patent review when a spec reaches Last Call Working 
Draft. So in our particular example, SVG members who choose not to join 
the task force for intellectual property reasons would have that 
opportunity to raise any concerns. Of course, since both Working Groups 
still would have to approve publication, they would in practice have the 
opportunity to raise concerns sooner than the formal opportunity, and 
would hopefully do that.

So setting up the task force as solely under the PF IP policy shouldn't 
affect implementations, as there is still a process to make sure there 
are no patent interests Consortium-wide. What it affects is the 
commitments made by the people who formally participate in the work.

Michael

Received on Monday, 31 March 2014 18:35:25 UTC