[wg-all] Why you should work with open standards organizations, and register for OGF 43 and 44 (and beyond!)

[Sill, Alan]

Dear OGF work and community group members,

This is a personal appeal. Today, just hours ago, I ran into the following terms of service for a company’s API that left me stunned, and helped to serve as a reminder to me as to why we do the work that you and your colleagues have been doing in this organization.

The company in question seem to have locked down every other aspect, but neglected to copyright the terms of service themselves, so I feel free to include them below, verbatim except for the organization’s name being left out and certain specific terms highlighted in boldface:

"Restrictions.  End User acknowledges and agrees that the structure, organization and sequence of the [XXXXXX] Software, [XXXXXX] Site, [XXXXXX] Platform and Documentation constitute valuable trade secrets of [XXXXXX] and its licensors. Except as otherwise permitted in this Agreement, End User agrees not to, and agrees not to permit or induce any third party to: (i) copy, download, modify, adapt, alter, translate, or create derivative works of the [XXXXXX] Site, [XXXXXX] Software, Documentation or [XXXXXX] Platform; (ii) merge the [XXXXXX] Software and/or [XXXXXX] Platform with other software or service; (iii) distribute, sublicense, lease, rent, loan, or otherwise transfer the [XXXXXX] Software and/or [XXXXXX] Platform to any third party, or enable the use of the [XXXXXX] Software and/or [XXXXXX] Platform on a time-share or service bureau basis; (iv) reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code for the [XXXXXX] Software, [XXXXXX] Site or [XXXXXX] Platform; or (v) publish or disclose to third parties any evaluation of the [XXXXXX] Software, [XXXXXX] Site or [XXXXXX] Platform without [XXXXXX]’s prior written consent.”

Let me contrast this directly and immediately for you with OGF’s copyright notice and intellectual property statement included in all published informational documents, community practice and experimental write-ups, proposed and full recommendation documents that we publish:

This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included as references to the derived portions on all such copies and derivative works. The published OGF document from which such works are derived, however, may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the OGF or other organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing new or updated OGF documents in conformance with the procedures defined in the OGF Document Process, or as required to translate it into languages other than English. OGF, with the approval of its board, may remove this restriction for inclusion of OGF document content for the purpose of producing standards in cooperation with other international standards bodies.

The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the OGF or its successors or assignees.

(Further information on the intellectual property statement and context of this notice is available on the OGF web site at https://www.ogf.org/dokuwiki/doku.php/about/copyright)

The contrast could not be greater, and the importance of open standards for design and reuse of APIs, protocols and documentation of methods for distributed computing could not be more clear. You folks constitute the heart and soul of OGF, and have created over the years a structure to allow the work and production of our collective products in an open way that is consistent with the best possible use of the word “open” in this context. read closely the two statements above, and see if you do not agree with me that this work is very important, and the open context in which we work is crucial if progress in this area is to continue.

If you agree, please register for one or both of the two upcoming OGF meetings for which we have registration open now, OGF 43 to take place at the GENI Engineering Conference the week of March 23-27, 2015 at the Hilton Crystal City near Washington DC, USA and OGF 44 to take place during the week of the EGI Spring Conference, May 18-22, 2015 in Lisbon, Portugal. Registering for either of these events will register you completely for participation in the OGF sessions that will take place at that event.

Here are links to these events:

  - OGF 43: https://www.ogf.org/dokuwiki/doku.php/events/ogf-43

  - OGF 44: https://www.ogf.org/dokuwiki/doku.php/events/ogf-44

We rely on your participation to create the conditions for OGF to fulfill its mission statement, which is to conduct and support "open forums that build the community, explore trends, share best practices and consolidate these best practices into standards.” OGF is happy to work with any and all other participants, organizations and partners in an open way to accomplish this mission. We also have an open, user-friendly process to create new community and work groups on any and all topics of interest.

If you believe in this mission, as I do, and would like to work to avoid incompatible, overly restrictive or deliberately prohibitive conditions that block interoperability of the sort that I quoted above, then I ask you to work with me and with the other innumerable colleagues that we have active in this area to accomplish something better, and to help fulfill, refine and extend the mission of OGF. Please register for one or more of the events above, and help us to plan new events, new community and/or standards work groups, or other activities of benefit to the community.

Yours sincerely,
Alan Sill
VP of Standards
Open Grid Forum



Open Grid Forum
Open Forum  |  Open Standards
http://www.ogf.org

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