Andre, This has been on my todo list for a week so I figure some random thoughts at 1am are better than nothing... As you saw, I didn't make it to OGF 28. I went to visit a Google datacenter in another country and imported some cold/flu mongrel hybrid that's kept me coughing for 3 weeks. That's [part of] the reason why I've missed calls and haven't been pushing the spec to completion. That will change very soon. I firmly believe that it's time for us to raise the bar for standards openness, and part of that is using a license that people are comfortable with such that they won't feel the need to engage a lawyer before [re]using our documents. As evidenced by the W3C notice I posted a few hours ago, I'm not alone on this. 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. It's too bad Creative Commons don't have a sensible license for standards that covers patents, but perhaps that's something they would consider if we ask nicely - I think I'll do just that. Cutting to the chase, as a primary contributor to the specification documents I "*grant to the OGF and its participants certain licenses and rights*" (per OGF Intellectual Property Policy<http://www.ogf.org/About/abt_policies.php>), but I *do not assign* the copyrights to OGF. As such I can do pretty much what I want with my contributions, including granting non-exclusive licenses to other organisations and publicly releasing them under a license of my choice or into the public domain (no license required). I would obviously prefer for the OGF to release the official documents of their own volition (even as an exception for OCCI), but don't think I won't do what is required in order to ensure adequate levels of freedom for our users and implementors (including rewriting contributions from others who reject more liberal licensing). Nor do I see how this would in any way prevent the OGF from reaching the three goals you described below. Sam On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 4:56 PM, Andre Merzky <andre@merzky.net> wrote:
Hi Sam, all,
ready to discuss licensing again? :-)
here is an update from OGF28: first, we heard rumours that you may show up here - this would be great, not in the least so that we can discuss the licensing thingie F2F. Usually that is way more productive than endless mailing threads like this one, isn't it :)
Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that we have been discussing the issues from the recent email exchanges (and I hope sincerely that these are the issues you are in fact concerned about) within the GFSG.
So, there was some discussion to review the current IPR text, and to clarify those passages which seem, in your reading, to hide the fact/intent that using any amount of text from a GFD for documentation and any other purpose is legally perfectly fine:
"...derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind..."
We will be cross-checking with similar texts of other standards bodies, in particular including IETF, which seem to recently have updated their IPR texts as well, to remove some ambiguities. The OGF IPR was originally modeled after IETF's, and, IIRC, was basically reproducing the OGF IPR word by word.
Further we have been discussing the point you raised that the state of OGF documents would be frozen in the case of OGF's disappearance. If this turns out to be a concern for the community, we will consider adding a clause which would release the documents into the public domain in the case of OGF's demise - we certainly don't want to hold anybody back in continuing to work with OGF documents in that case.
Both of the above changes however need to be evaluated, and need to be approved by the OGF board. While we don't think this is a problem per se, this will need time to be changed.
The OGF IPR is designed as it is to fulfil three goals: (a) support the production and consumption of standards, (b) ensure that OGF documents (i.e. documents released under OGF copyright) went through the OGF document process, and (c) secure OGF against legal litigations. The board will need to make sure that in particular (b) and (c) are not affected by the proposed changes. If this sounds overly bureaucratic to you: well, that is the way we work ;-)
Please let us know if changes along those lines would make you sleep better :-D
FWIW: for the same reasons as above (a-c), we do actually require that OGF documents are under full OGF copyright, and it does not seem likely that a proposal for dual licensing would find much support, if any.
Looking forward to see you in Munich!
Best, Andre.
-- Nothing is ever easy.