Re: [jakarta.ee-spec.committee] Recent Edits

[Scott Stark <sstark@xxxxxxxxxx>]

So point one falls into the domain of intellectual property vs simple copyright, which most open source developers simply want to ignore. As far as I know, and based feedback from any lawyer I have worked with on this topic, the reality is that there is no open source license that is sufficient to handle both copyright and other intellectual property rights such as patents. Any purely open source license based foundation is relying on corporate members with patent portfolios providing defense grants to not be prey of patent trolls. I am interested in the OASIS open source based spec process that IBM is scheduled to present this week at our weekly call to understand how this has been addressed.

On the second point about fungibility of corporate spec representatives equating to a bypass of the meritocracy rules, we should simply make a point of calling out that "representatives" on a spec are based on demonstrated expertise/meritocracy, and any exchange expects that to be maintained. This would apply to exchange of corporate or individual spec representatives.

On Tue, May 29, 2018 at 10:46 AM, Ivar Grimstad <ivar.grimstad@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The "pay to play" term was something some of the more vocal community members used when Eclipse foundation was chosen over e.g. Apache foundation in the beginning. I guess that when they realize that companies can "bypass" the meritocracy rules individual committers must follow, they will see this as proof that they were right. 

Note that I am not disagreeing with having this kind of process, what I am saying is that it has to be communicated really carefully. Otherwise, I guess we will see a lot more "kerfuffle" on the mailing list than we have ever before. The distinction between a spec project and a regular open source project must be so crystal clear that everybody, even the ones that always assume bad intentions with every announcement, are convinced.

Ivar

On Tue, May 29, 2018 at 7:30 PM Scott Stark <sstark@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

What is the exact "pay to play" concern, meaning, how is that falling out of the current "limited to parties (the “Participants”) covered under a <<Working Group>> Participation Agreement" wording I see in the requirements?

I'm also not really seeing the concern over the interchangeability of participants in a spec. A given spec working group is made of up implementors/users with expertise in the given spec. The exact set of participants should be flexible. In many areas both copyright and patent rights are owned by an employee's company, so it is a fallacy to believe that a spec can be developed that is able to convey such rights without considering the reality of legal constraints.

The hole in the logic with the specific example of a representative being on a spec who leaves a company, but remains on the spec, is that they need a new "Participation Agreement" in order to be properly representing their ability to meet the copyright and patent flow requirements.