co-board May 2007

co-board@lists.fsfe.org

6 participants
19 discussions

MoU + Principles feedback from FSFE lawyer
by Georg C. F. Greve 09 Jun '07

09 Jun '07

FYI. Attached the legal feedback (in German). I'll try a quick and dirty translation as best I can. If things are too obfuscated as a result, let me know: 1. Certified Open Ltd already exists and the MoU should prepare the collaboration of OFE, FSFE and a third party inside Certified Open and document the planning. The precise structure is still open. On FSFE's side the activitly will be taxed as economic activity, and will be coordinated with FSFE's tax consultants. 2. In my opinion the MoU should be more clear on how to split the cost of the preparation phase. This in particular concerns a) the general cost for lawyers/notary and register in relation to issues of association/organisation law, in particular if FSFE should become partner/member in the Certified Open Ltd; b) the costs for the time invested by the partners and that should be reimbursed from income to the Ltd. For this it might be useful to be concrete in terms of daily/hourly rates, and possible a maximum amount for pre-invested time and travel expense. Additionally: What happens if this does not work and no sufficient income is generated. 3. The MoU creates the impression that more than one third party should be involved. If this only concerns a single third party, that should be clarified and the party should be named, if possible. 4. Legal consequences in case one partner leaves are still unclear. Why the "notice period" in a)? What should happen within the 6 months if one party starts to block things -- is this not more an obstacle than the partner leaving immediately? Who covers the cost to that were incurred until that point? In b) the three months period makes no sense, imho. If a party leaves, there is no way the remaining parties could be stopped from continuing things in any way they please. 5. There should be some word on the applicable law and place of court if the MoU should be legally enforceable or if you want to document seriousness. If this is only as a "reminder" it is not necessary. 6. Maybe it would be beneficial to add a sentence that shaping of Certified Open will be done by a commonly agreed upon statute. -- Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)fsfeurope.org> Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfeurope.org) Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org) What everyone should know about DRM (http://DRM.info)

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Submission to BIS by FSFI, includes another Open Standard Definition
by Georg C. F. Greve 30 May '07

30 May '07

Hi all, the attached document was written by Nagarjuna G of FSF India and submitted to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) on the MS-OOXML application, so might be of interest to you as well as worth archiving here. Nagarjuna has in particular included his understanding of what is an Open Standard, for which he sought in particular also my feedback: I don't see major incompatibilities with his understanding from ours, there is some fuzzyness. In particular at first reading my impression was that a) a Free Software reference implementation would not be considered enough by his definition b) the patent grants needed to pass the definition might be narrower than in our definition Other than that, this contains some good explanation on why certain conditions are necessary, which might be helpful with some people, which is another reason I share them here. Regards, Georg -- Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)fsfeurope.org> Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfeurope.org) Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org) What everyone should know about DRM (http://DRM.info)

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Open Standard Definition (from Sun)
by Georg C. F. Greve 29 May '07

29 May '07

Hi all, I got word from inside Sun that they like our definition of an Open Standard, and they also shared with me their approach to this, which I attach to this email for reference and archival purposes. Regards, Georg -- Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)fsfeurope.org> Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfeurope.org) Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org) What everyone should know about DRM (http://DRM.info)

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Open Standards Definition - more feedback
by Georg C. F. Greve 28 May '07

28 May '07

Hi all, I bounced our definition over to the Execom of the SELF project, and got some interesting feedback. In particular: >> c) free from legal or technical clauses that could be construed as >> limiting its utilisation by any party or business model; f> The "could be construed as limiting" bit is problematic, because f> of something could be construed as something it is not. I think f> "could limit" is a better alternative. f> Also, business models themselves are not entities who could use f> software, it's rather parties who use it to support business f> models. What do you think of "any party under any business f> model"? This seems sensible to me. >> d) developed and managed independently of any single vendor in a >> process open to the equal participation of competitors and >> third parties; f> The matter of origin also is rather complex. I see what this is f> meant to limit, but the limit as stated could be f> overreaching. Under this definition, Unix would not be an open f> standard because it was originally dependent on AT&T. I'm not f> entirely sure whether even POSIX would comply, since it depends on f> AT&T's work. f> This is a tough one. For one, we don't want anybody to dump a ton f> of paper filled with unintelligible gibberish on ISO and call it f> an open standard, even if it is open to participation from now on f> (because no-one would care to participate in a skewed playing f> field). f> Maybe the origin bit of this clause is unnecessary (the management f> bit is crucial), given the last one, which is the real test of f> whether the specification is readable and has any chance of f> acceptance: [...] Which may be true. I'm not sure. So including these comments we'd have: An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is a) subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a manner equally available to all parties; b) without any components or extensions that have dependencies on formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open Standard themselves; c) free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by any party or in any business model; d) [developed and] managed independently of any single vendor in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third parties; e) available in multiple complete implementations by competing vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all parties. Comments? Regards, Georg -- Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)fsfeurope.org> Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfeurope.org) Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org) What everyone should know about DRM (http://DRM.info)

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Certified Open Online form development
by bob blatchford 28 May '07

28 May '07

All I have discussed development of Certified Open Online form with Reinhard Mueller at Bytewise and will be agreeing the specification with him by the end of next week. The delivered initial product will be in English and not contain an automatic appeals process, specification to be circulated next week. We have agreed an outline programme as follows: Development starts 4th June Inhouse testing Starts 1st July Franchise website test 7th July (Ireland suggested) Acceptance/go live 16th July This assumes no major issues identified during development and testing I don't know if this meets your launch date planning criteria or whether you need to review the launch as a result. Regards -- Bob OpenForum Europe OFE ltd. m: 0044 7739180472 w: www.openforumeurope.org This e-mail and any files transmitted with it are the property of OFE Ltd, are confidential, may be subject to legal privilege and are intended only for the person(s) or organisation(s) named above. Any unauthorised use, retention, distribution, copying or disclosure is strictly prohibited. If you receive this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this e-mail from your system. WARNING: It is your responsibility to take all necessary steps to ensure this e-mail and any attachments to it are free from viruses.

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CO pricing
by Graham Taylor 28 May '07

28 May '07

One of the queries Bob discussed with Reinhard was the need for variable pricing. We already have one off prices, unlimited and free. But Bob queried whether we needed the flexibility of a variable price, eg different price in different parts of the world? I remember we discussed this but not what we agreed? I think we said we would start with one price? but good to have future flexibility. Bob is there much difference in work? G

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Open Standards Definition, version of 23 May 2007
by Georg C. F. Greve 24 May '07

24 May '07

Hi all, this is the latest version that Shane and I were considering. It contains slight reformulation of a) based on the fact that if we are strict, we might find ourselves excluding ODF: When being precise we'd have to admit that indeed ODF would be seen more like "structure documented, with reference implementation to fill in the gaps and to test against." So it would fail "fully and publicly documented", but we think it should pass. So we thought about reformulation. Our best proposal: a) subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a manner equally available to all parties; which also incorporates part of clause c), which becomes cleaner that way. Comments appreciated. Regards, Georg An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is a) subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a manner equally available to all parties; b) without any components or extensions that have dependencies on formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open Standard themselves; c) free from legal or technical clauses that could be construed as limiting its utilisation by any party or business model; d) developed and managed independently of any single vendor in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third parties; e) available in multiple complete implementations by competing vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all parties. -- Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)fsfeurope.org> Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfeurope.org) Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org) What everyone should know about DRM (http://DRM.info)

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Summary of telephone call between OFE and FSFE, 24th May
by Shane M. Coughlan 24 May '07

24 May '07

Additions and corrections most welcome. Regards Shane -- Shane Coughlan FTF Coordinator Free Software Foundation Europe Office: +41435000366 ext 408 / Mobile: +41792633406 coughlan(a)fsfeurope.org Support Free Software > http://fsfe.org

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CO Minutes
by Graham Taylor 24 May '07

24 May '07

I've annotated with afew comments, and suggested we try and have a conf call this week to go through progress? Rgds G

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Latest version of the Certified Open Product and Services Framework
by Shane M. Coughlan 23 May '07

23 May '07

Please find attached an updated version of the Certified Open Product and Services Framework (with change mode switched on). This version was created after some discussion between Graham, Georg and myself, and includes some minor revisions to language. The formatting of the document needs to be fixed. I'll do that later. Just looking for comments on content right now. Regards Shane -- Shane Coughlan FTF Coordinator Free Software Foundation Europe Office: +41435000366 ext 408 / Mobile: +41792633406 coughlan(a)fsfeurope.org Support Free Software > http://fsfe.org

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co-board May 2007