Hi Nat,
Responses inline and I've cc'd the Identity Commons Stewards list
since they were really involved in this discussion earlier as well.
--David
On Mar 1, 2009, at 10:57 AM, Nat Sakimura wrote:
I would like to point out couple of things here.
First, about the power structure.
The IdTBD takes bicameral model.
Yes, I was first introduced to this model in the face to face meeting
late last year which you participated in. :)
One is Leadership council, which consists of the leaders of the WGs.
You do not have to be a paying member to be a participant of a WG, and
thus you do not have to be a paying member to be a WG leader.
Most things happens here and at WGs.
In a sense, it is the House of Commons. Most power resides here.
I think that having this sort of Leadership Council makes sense in
being a way to better represent the Working Groups in a much more
formal manner. I agree with what you said later that better
representing Working Groups and Committees formally within the OpenID
Foundation makes sense. This however also means shifting more of our
Committees away from being run by Board members and instead a more
diverse set of community members.
The other is the Board of Trustees. It is responsible for fiduciary
requirement, such as keeping the book, legal compliance check,
checking if all the IPR issues are sort out before the spec is submit
to a Standard Setting Organization (SSO), staff oversight, negotiation
with the relevant SSO when transfering the spec to it, etc. Everything
apart from the staff hiring/payment etc., which is required by law to
be private, are going to be transparent, so a company who voted for
something that would not be popular among the community at large will
pick up a bad reputation.
It makes sense to have people focus on what they're good at. I
haven't been convinced that individuals appointed by companies are
better at managing these sorts of responsibilities than individuals
elected by a community or appointed by merit (such as by running a
working group).
The board is not nearly as powerful as the OpenID Board. In a sense,
the Board of Trustees is House of Lords.
This is where the model breaks down for me. You've just said that the
Board of Trustees manages the:
1) money
2) record keeping
3) legal matters
4) staff hiring and oversight
To me, this seems like the Board of Trustees manages all of the pieces
that fundamentally build, maintain and run the organization. As I
said in my earlier email, the Board of Trustees is made up of one
representative of each company that paid – what I assume to be given
Liberty's background – big bucks and two members of the Leadership
Council. This means that the companies fundamentally control how the
organization spends money and where it spends it, what the staff are
instructed to do and what not to do and all of the legal documents and
policies of the organization.
Given this, I don't see how this organization will represent the views
of the community when a forever growing group of corporations are
making all of the "business decisions." This is fundamentally
different from the OpenID Foundation where our bylaws stipulate that
our Board be made up of one more community elected member than
corporate members which maintains balance.
Since the Leadership Council reflects the view of the entire
community, not only the paying member unlike OIDF, it could be argued
that it is a more democratic organization.
See above.
The second point is the IPR agreements. As to the IPRs are concerned,
there will be multiple IPR agreements. It is up to the WGs to pick one
from the given list. If there is not one that satisfy your
requirement, you can submit it to the IdTBD to be added to the list.
What has been distributed is the Liberty Policy, which is the most
relevant at this time since they are transitioning their existing
working groups (TEGs and SIGs) to IdTBD. If your organization is to
join and merge into IdTBD, your IPR agreements are also going to be
added. Perhaps submitting an IPR agreement that you believe the best
to IdTBD list would be a good practice. I think I am going to request
CC licenses to be added to the list. Is there anything else that you
want to submit?
I would recommend that they follow the work within the Open Web
Foundation and once I'm off a plane can send around a link.
=nat
On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 5:30 PM, David Recordon <[email protected]>
wrote:
Attached are the draft Bylaws and IPR Policy coming out of the
IDtbd face to
face meeting (which I did not attend) earlier this week. The model
largely
seems to be the same as from the discussions last year, a Board of
Trustees
mainly consisting of companies that control the funds within the
organization and then a separate Leadership Council made up of
working group
leaders who request money from the company body. The Bylaws
document is a
red-line from last year so it is easy to see how little has actually
changed. Additionally, the draft IPR Policy does not seem to take
into
account much of the innovation that has occurred over the past two
years
within the OpenID, OAuth, OpenSocial and Open Web Foundation
communities but
rather is a much more traditional large SDO policy.
While there is obviously enough interest in this model for Liberty
to be
moving forward, I still don't believe that it is a model matching
the values
of the OpenID community (nor that of the communities behind
technologies
like OAuth and OpenSocial).
--David
Begin forwarded message:
From: Bill Smith <[email protected]>
Date: February 26, 2009 9:55:31 PM PST
To: [email protected]
Subject: [IDtbd] Rev 2.0 of Draft Bylaws and IPR Policy
Reply-To: [email protected]
All,
I wanted to thank to everyone that participated in the discussions
over the
past two days. I believe they were productive and have resulted in
a better
understanding of our issue and concerns.
Attached are updated Draft Bylaws and IPR Policy documents that I
hope
reflect the discussions that we held over the past two days. These
new
drafts are the result of review and revision by a small group of
those that
participated in the discussions and represent our best effort to
establish a
consensus position of all in the room.
The Bylaws are a redlined from Version 1.0. The IPR Policy is not
redlined
but includes changes that should reflect our intention that license
obligations attach only to WG members. Below is a concise outline
of the
Policy:
WG Member
Default RF license obligation
Option to withdraw Necessary Claims to RAND during prescribed periods
Option to withdraw from WG (license obligation depends on timing of
withdrawal)
Contributions RF, no option to withdraw (unless disclosure at time of
contribution)
WG Non-member
No obligation to license
Please review and submit comments at your earliest convenience.
Regards,
Bill
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--
Nat Sakimura (=nat)
http://www.sakimura.org/en/
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