Re: OASIS -- Our Membership and their IP Policy?
Hi Claire,
Sorry for the delay.
Is Debian still a member of the OASIS group?
Yes. Our membership expires in June.
I just looked at
their member list, and didn't see us listed.
We are listed as a "Contributor", rather than a sponsor, owing to the fact that
we pay a reduced rate:
http://www.oasis-open.org/about/contributors.php
I'm asking because of Lawrence Rosen's ``A Call to Action in
OASIS'', which I saw in today's LWN [1]. Apparently OASIS is
adopting a new intellectual-property policy that would allow
standards based on patent-encumbered technology, which would be a
bad thing for the open-source community in general, and Debian in
particular.
Yes, I'd been working from within OASIS to address the issues with the new IPR
policy, but never got any traction.
I also requested legal review by posting to debian-legal last November,
http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/11/msg00142.html
but didn't receive any feedback.
There are a lot of big names [2] at the end of the post, not
including our DPL.
I've asked that my name be added to the list{1} as well, but nothing has happened.
I honestly have no idea when or how the solicitation for signatures went out.
I know Bruce Perens is addressing this issue now, but I'n not sure what the
status is.
No doubt we will discuss this in full when it comes time to renew Debian's OASIS
membership. We may decide to bow out, or we could stay in & work to directly
effect change. For example, I'd be willing to run for a position on the OASIS
Board of Directors the next time there is an election.
Hope that helps...
Cheers,
Mark
{1} http://perens.com/Articles/OASIS.html
Claire
[1] http://lwn.net/Articles/124548/
[2] Lawrence Rosen, Bruce Perens, Richard Stallman, Lawrence
Lessig, Eben Moglen, Marten Mickos, John Weathersby, John
Terpstra, Tim O'Reilly, Tony Stanco, Don Marti, Michael
Tiemann, Andrew Aitken, Karen Copenhaver, Doug Levin, Dan
Ravicher, Larry Augustin, Mitchell Kapor, Russell Nelson,
Guido van Rossum, Daniel Quinlan, Murugan Pal, Stuart Cohen,
Danese Cooper, Eric Raymond, Mark Webbink, Ken Coar, Doc
Searls, Brian Behlendorf.
--
____________________________________________________________
Mark Johnson <mrj@debian.org>
Debian XML/SGML: <http://debian-xml-sgml.alioth.debian.org>
Home Page: <http://dulug.duke.edu/~mark/>
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