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), 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.

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.