Subject: [codec] Fodder for thought: OWF agreement to augment the IETF patent policy

From: Stephan Wenger <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:26:26 -0800

Hi all,
I have mentioned this thing in passing before, but now that the release is
official, it may be a good time to remind everyone here.  Please take a look
at 
http://openwebfoundation.org/2009/11/introducing-the-open-web-foundation-agr
eement.html, and, if you like the ideas, have your lawyers take a look at
the agreement itself.  The agreement is designed to provide an
as-bulletproof-as-possible, open source friendly, assurance that both
copyright and patent rights required for a spec stay available in for the
lifetime of the rights.  If a group is able to keep track of all
contributors, and all contributors are willing to sign this, it provides
IMHO a considerably more solid assurance to users than IETF disclosures
alone, at least when considering how most of these disclosures have been
phrased in the past.
Note that the agreement is designed to be signed after standardization is
(almost) done, and, therefore, requires a trust relationship between the
parties contributing (which could be informal, but perhaps also documented
in the form of IETF IPR disclosures).  Note further that this exercise, if
adopted, would be in addition to the IETF¹s standards and IPR processes, and
not replacing them.
Regards,
Stephan