[KI-LC] [BoT] Group "Join" Form

[Brett McDowell]

Nat,

You raise an important issue.  This issue was considered and there  
were a few back-and-forth exchanges about this between the BoT  
officers and Kantara's legal counsel.  There are a few reasons why we  
have taken the approach we have:

- the alternative would be to require VP (or above) signature from  
every applicant who isn't a Member

- we consider such a barrier to be counter to our principals of  
inclusion and facilitation, especially with our developer community

- there are some precedents for the exact approach we are using that  
our counsel has worked on before, so we are not breaking new ground.   
That gives us further confidence in this approach.

- Members do have an extra benefit in managing exposure to their  
patent portfolios because we know who to turn to for approval and we  
can get senior sign-off without introducing a major barrier.  But if a  
developer comes to us "off the street" we would be putting that burden  
entirely on her and even if we did get such a signature who can we be  
sure that person really is the VP or CXO of their company (unless they  
are publicly traded and/or have exposed those details).

- Since our Work Group and Discussion Group rosters are public and  
transparent, the risks of a "rogue" contributor can be mitigated  
through community review.  In other words, if you are a member of a  
Work Group and you see something that concerns you, you are free to  
raise the issue to your Chair (or to me) and one of us could reach out  
to the participant with a good faith effort to ensure their company  
was really aware of and committed to the patent licensing that was  
being asserted.  I expect this will be a corner case.

I hope that explains the rationale that went into this lightweight  
approach and why we have confidence in keeping it light without undue  
risk being placed on other participants in any given WG.

Brett McDowell  |  +1.413.652.1248  |  http://KantaraInitiative.org

On Jun 21, 2009, at 7:51 PM, Nat Sakimura wrote:

> My concern is that, in case of non-member, would it be good enough
> to believe the self declaration: I.e., how to check if he is really
> authorized to make this statement.
>
> =nat
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Eve Maler" <Eve.Maler at Sun.COM>
> Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2009 6:03 AM
> To: "Salzberg, Kenneth M" <ken.salzberg at intel.com>
> Cc: <LC at kantarainitiative.org>; <trustees at kantarainitiative.org>
> Subject: Re: [BoT] [KI-LC]  Group "Join" Form
>
>> My only comment is that the footnote text would be better if it could
>> appear, say in parentheses, up near item 6.  It's hard to find the  
>> [1]
>> and the corresponding footnote.  (Alternatively, you could make it a
>> hyperlink -- <a name="footnote1">xyz</a> and then <a
>> href="#footnote1">abc</a>.)
>>
>>       Eve
>>
>> On Jun 19, 2009, at 11:37 AM, Salzberg, Kenneth M wrote:
>>
>>> Looking good.
>>> Question on the "Cancel" button: currently, since I can only access
>>> the form (I assume) via the enclosed link, cancel does not appear to
>>> do anything.  What will it do normally?  Return to the previous  
>>> page?
>>>
>>> Ken Salzberg,  Technology Manager
>>> Integrated Platforms Research, Intel Labs
>>> ken.salzberg at intel.com   503.264.8276   JF2-58
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: trustees-bounces at kantarainitiative.org [mailto:trustees-bounces at kantarainitiative.org
>>> ] On Behalf Of Brett McDowell
>>> Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 11:07 AM
>>> To: Kantara Trustees (trustees at kantarainitiative.org); LC at kantarainitiative.org
>>> Subject: [BoT] Group "Join" Form
>>>
>>> In the Board of Trustees call yesterday I took an action to have  
>>> some
>>> revisions made to the online "join" form and circulate the revised,
>>> legally reviewed form to both the LC and BoT for final review.  The
>>> revised form is now online here:
>>>
>>> http://signup.kantarainitiative.org/
>>>
>>> (note: we'll have a version of this with the group choice already
>>> filled out located on each WG & DG page just for user convenience)
>>>
>>> Please let me know if you have any feedback on this final proposed
>>> form prior to Monday 10:00am EDT when the BoT Officers will meet and
>>> make a decision about putting this into production.
>>>
>>> P.S.
>>> Feel free to test this and go through the process without any legal
>>> binding commitment between now and Monday 10:00am EDT because all  
>>> the
>>> data we receive will be destroyed prior to putting it into  
>>> production
>>> when we will be linking to the form from the appropriate pages on  
>>> our
>>> web site.
>>>
>>> Have a nice weekend.
>>>
>>> Brett McDowell  |  +1.413.652.1248  |  http://KantaraInitiative.org
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Trustees mailing list
>>> Trustees at kantarainitiative.org
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>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> LC mailing list
>>> LC at kantarainitiative.org
>>> http://kantarainitiative.org/mailman/listinfo/lc_kantarainitiative.org
>>
>>
>> Eve Maler                                          eve.maler @  
>> sun.com
>> Emerging Technologies Director                    cell +1 425 345  
>> 6756
>> Sun Microsystems Identity Software                www.xmlgrrl.com/ 
>> blog
>>
>>
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>
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