---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sam Johnston <samj@samj.net> Date: Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 9:25 PM Subject: [Sam Johnston] How I tried to keep OCCI alive (and failed miserably) I was going to let this one slide but following a calumniatory missive<http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2010-June/001867.html>to his "followers" by the Open Cloud Computing Interface <http://www.occi-wg.org/>'s self-proclaimed "Founder & Chair", Sun refugee Thijs Metsch <http://twitter.com/befreax>, I have little choice but to respond in my defense (particularly as "The Chairs" were actively soliciting <http://twitter.com/dizz/status/16397788487>followup from others on-list in support). Basically a debate came to a head that has been brewing on- and off-list<http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2010-March/001703.html>for months regarding the Open Grid Forum (OGF) <http://www.ogf.org/>'s attempts to prevent me from licensing *my own contributions* (essentially the entire normative specification) under a permissive Creative Commons<http://www.creativecommons.org/>license (as an additional option to the restrictive OGF license <http://www.ogf.org/About/abt_policies_copyright.php>) and/or submit them to the IETF as previously agreed and as required by the OGF's own policies <http://www.ogf.org/documents/GFD.1.pdf>. This was on the grounds that "*Most existing cloud computing specifications are available under CC licenses and I don't want to give anyone any excuses to choose another standard over ours*" and that the IETF has an excellent track record of producing high quality, interoperable, open specifications by way of a controlled yet open process. This should come as no surprise to those of you who know I am and will always be a huge supporter of open cloud, open source and open standards. The OGF process had failed to deliver after over 12 months of deadline extensions - the current spec is frozen in an incomplete state (lacking critical features like collections, search, billing, security, etc.) as a result of being prematurely pushed into public comment, nobody is happy with it (including myself), the community has all but dissipated (except for a few hard core supporters, previously including myself) and software purporting to implement it actually implements something completely different altogether (see for yourself<http://www.opennebula.org/documentation:rel1.4:occidd>). There was no light at the end of the tunnel and with both OGF29<http://www.gridforum.org/OGF29/>and IETF78 <http://www.ietf78.nl/home.html> just around the corner I yesterday took a desperate gamble to keep OCCI alive (as a CC-licensed spec, an IETF Internet-Draft or both). I confirmed that I was well within my rights to revoke any copyright, trademark and other rights previously granted (apparently it was amateur hour as OGF had failed to obtain an irrevocable license from me for my contributions) and volunteered to do so if restrictions on reuse by others weren't lifted and/or the specification submitted to the IETF process as agreed and required by their own policies. Thijs' colleague (and quite probably his boss at Platform Computing <http://www.platform.com/>), Christopher Smith (who doubles as OGF's outgoing VP of Standards) promptly responded, questioning my motives (which I can assure you are pure) and issuing a terse legal threat about how the "OGF will protect its rights" (against me over my own contributions no less). Thijs then followed up shortly after saying that they "see the secretary position as vacant from now on" and despite claims to the contrary<http://twitter.com/papaspyrou/status/16403013420>I really couldn't give a rats arse about a title bestowed upon me by a past-its-prime organisation struggling (and failing I might add) to maintain relevance. My only concern is that OCCI have a good home and if anything Platform have just captured the sort of control over it as VMware enjoy over DMTF/vCloud, with Thijs being the only remaining active editor. I thought that would be the end of it and had planned to let sleeping dogs lie until today's disgraceful, childish, coordinated and most of all completely unnecessary attack<http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/occi-wg/2010-June/001867.html>on an unpaid volunteer that rambled about "constructive technical debate" and "community driven consensus", thanking me for my "meaningful contributions" but then calling on others to take up the pitchforks by "welcom[ing] any comments on this statement" on- or off-list. The attacks then continued on Twitter with another OGF official<http://twitter.com/papaspyrou> claiming that this "*was a consensus decision within a group of, say, 20+ active and many many (300+) passive participants*" (despite this being the first any of us had heard of it) and then calling my claims of copyright ownership "*genuine bullshit*" and report of an implementor instantly pulling out because they (and I quote) "*can't implement something if things are not stable*" a "*damn lie*", claiming I was "*pissed*" and should "*get over it and stop crying*" (needless to say they were promptly blocked).* * Anyway as you can see there's more to it than Thijs' diatribe would have you believe and so far as I'm concerned OCCI, at least in it's current form, is long since dead. I'm undecided as to whether to revoke OGF's licenses at this time but it probably doesn't matter as they agree I retain the copyrights and I think their chance of success is negligible - nobody in their right mind would implement the product of such a dysfunctional group and those who already did have long since found<http://blog.opennebula.org/?p=185> alternatives <http://blog.opennebula.org/?p=528>. That's not to say the specification won't live on in another form but now the OGF have decided to go nuclear it's going to have to be in a more appropriate forum - one that furthers the standard rather than constantly holding it back. *Protip*: None of this has anything to do with my current employer so let's keep it that way. -- Posted By Sam Johnston to Sam Johnston<http://samj.net/2010/06/how-i-tried-to-keep-occi-alive-and.html>at 6/17/2010 09:25:00 PM