Summary of WS-I phonecon

[dane at fnal.gov]

Attendees: Hiro Kisimoto, Dane, Mike DeNicola (WS-I Liaison Chair),
Michael Weiner (WS-I Liaison to GGF) (joined about 3/4 way through
conversation).

We discussed at some length what would be the benefits of GGF joining
WS-I as an associate member. The main benefits of the membership
process that WS-I sees is that (like their industrial members), the
staff of the standards organization which participate in WS-I would be
bound by their IPR. The main benefit to GGF is that GGF staff would
get access to prerelease versions of the WS-I standards products
(profiles and test suites) and the ability to participate in the
development of the WS-I products.

The WS-I IPR policy is intended to say that work products developed in
WS-I and published by WS-I are covered by the WS-I IPR and that use
that members make of information they have access to via their
membership in WS-I to develop their own specs and publish themselves
is covered by that member's IPR (and not the WS-I one). I'm not sure
that's a logically (or legally) consistent definition, but it was
described as their intent. This was the question we were seeking our
own legal counsel on. In my opinion, we should not taint the IPR of
our own products by a WS-I membership connection, but if the spirit
of the WS-I policy is born out by a competent legal reading, then I
would be fine with that.

Mike DeNicola pointed out that GGF members who were employees of WS-I
member organizations could already participate in WS-I through their
employeers connection. I pointed out that approximately half of our
membership and leadership come from academic institutions which tend
not to be members of WS-I (or other standards organizations). We see
the main benefit to both organizations of a more formal collaboration
as being the expansion of participation capabilities to cover more of
our leadership than is currently allowed.

We discussed the fact that GGF (like WS-I it turns out) is largely a
volunteer organization with very few (none in their case) paid
employees of the organization and that our "staff" were the GGF
officers down to the level of group chairs. I mentioned that we had
formalized this in the GGF, Inc sufficiently clearly to purchase
liability coverage for our officers. We requested that they consider
that definition of "staff" for purposes of our membership. I committed
to writing this out clearly for them to present to their leadership on
April 1. (Steve, can you help here ? My recollection was in the end,
GGF, Inc just purchased an insurance policy naming the positions in
GGF. Did we formally name the positions as officers of GGF, Inc or
some other formal connection ?)

It turns out W3C has a similar problem with joining WS-I. They wish to
create an MOU as a peer organization and not "join" per se and to have
full reciprocity of participation to all members. Their legal council
and leadership have a real reluctance to abandon their membership
model and start from scratch on an MOU.

It is my personal opinion that we should not hold out for full
reciprocity nor insist on a peering level MOU, but that unless we
can obtain agreement that allows for GGF member participation in WS-I
at least to the level of group chairs, we should not join WS-I. I see
the political gain as insufficient without that technical gain.

I would ask for some time at the next phonecon to discuss this and
Hiro has agreed to lead the discussion and summarize to
Mike and Michael in time for their discussion with the WS-I leadership
on April 1.  (Perhaps Olle will do the summary as a first act as new
WS-I liaison, if that's agreeable to both he and Hiro).

We did not discuss the reverse (WS-I joining GGF as a sponsor -- paid
or unpaid).

Regards,
Dane