Peter, (01)
Brief interpretation: If you post it, then you warrant that it is or is
intended to be in the public domain. (02)
A. If you own it you have given it away.
B. If someone else owns it, their only recourse is with the person whom
posted the property. (03)
Nor can you take anything from a public forum and later claim exclusive
rights... Unless of course you are ISO. (04)
My 2 cents worth of thought. (05)
Jess Irwin (06)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter P.
Yim
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 5:24 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: [ontolog-forum] Ontolog IPR issues (07)
All, (08)
There's been recent discussions relating to Intellectual Property Rights
(IPR) and work posted to the Ontolog collaborative environment after a
member of the community felt that her IPR has been infringed upon. While
that member's concerns were mainly directed towards a particular
initiative (and therefore, I will try respond separately), others have
suggested we take the opportunity to clarify Ontolog's position in
relation to IPR issues. This is my attempt to make such clarification,
and hope that we all emerge with better alignment in our understanding
of the subject. (09)
I am not a lawyer ("IANAL" ... I just learned that through ChrisMenzel's
recent post), therefore, anyone who has issues with what is said here is
advised to consult an IP professional on the matter. (010)
I will try to address the matter from what I envisage, both from the
*spirit* and from the *letter* of Ontolog's IPR Policy, which, by the
way, has hardly changed since Ontolog was started in 2002. (011)
1. *The Spirit of the Ontolog IPR Policy* (012)
Ontolog is constituted as an "open, international, virtual community of
practice" (ref.
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nidB ).
Therefore, one can almost take "open" as our firstname, and "community
of practice" as our lastname. What we are trying here, in a nutshell, is
to foster sharing and collaboration, and to facilitate the building of a
collective body of knowledge that can stay "free" and "open." (013)
By "open," as our very simple IPR policy states: (ref.
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid32 ) (014)
//
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy (32) (015)
* the [ontolog-forum] is chartered to be an OPEN forum. As such, all
contribution to this forum by its community membership shall have been
made under an open content license, open publication license or one of
the free software or open source licenses. (See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/free_content)
(33) (016)
o unless otherwise specified, content within the [ontolog-forum]
collaborative work environment shall be subject to OpenContent License
(OPL), Version 1.0, July 14, 1998 or its
successor. (see http://opencontent.org/opl.shtml) (34) (017)
o when in doubt, IPR matters relating to the [ontolog-forum]
default to the OASIS IPR policy (in accordance with the processes
defined in our reconstitution of September
2002.) (35) (018)
o those who are unable to contribute under the above licensing
arrangements should refrain from contributing to the
[ontolog-forum] content. (36)
// (019)
Our membership policy also states: (ref.
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J ) (020)
//
* this is an OPEN, virtual Community of Practice ("CoP"),
operated by the community itself (1M) (021)
* anyone who would want to participate and contribute in accordance with
this CoP's charter, and consents to abide by its IPR policy and other
by-laws which the community shall set-forth, is welcomed to join. To
date, there is no fee or cost to participate, except that members are
expected to be team players and contribute to our mission as much as,
and in whatever way
they can. (1N) (022)
... (023)
* please ensure that your posts are relevant (to our Community Charter),
and that it complies with our IPR Policy. (ZBG) (024)
* unless specifically requested/solicited by other community member(s),
please make sure any commercial- or self-promotion material or reference
are strictly limited to one's namesake page or a short signature block,
and nowhere else as far as our open collaborative work environment is
concerned. The co-conveners reserve the right to relocate or remove of
such material from within the CWE, if deemed inappropriately done, to
the extent that it affects the neutrality and commercial free work
environment that this CWE is set out to be. (LMK) // (025)
Noting also, that, by "community of practice (CoP)," we are going by the
way John Seely Brown (from Xerox PARC who coined the term back in the
1980's) sees it: " ... small group of people who've worked together over
a period of time. Not a team, not a task force, not necessarily an
authorized or identified group. They are peers in the execution of "real
work." What holds them together is a common sense of purpose and a real
need to know what each other knows." (026)
Of particular interest is the fact that we are archiving all the Ontolog
transactions in our collaborative work environment (CWE), which serves
as a dynamic knowledge repository for us (in the sense that Doug
Engelbart have pointed us toward, albeit in a lesser way), and are thus,
building a collective body of knowledge as community members interact. (027)
If it is not clear enough (from the above policies and from Chris
Menzel's 2008.05.03 post - ref.
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontology-summit/2008-05/msg00008.html
), let me repeat here, Ontolog is intended to be a (virtual) place where
people can openly and freely exchange ideas, with minimal encumbrance by
IPR issues. We want our members to share ideas, collaborate, remix (as
Larry Lessig would call it,) stand on each others' shoulders (rather
than re-invent the wheel) ...
etc. etc., and generate more and better ideas by being a community of
practice. Not only are sharing, collaboration, etc.
allowed, they are encouraged here (again, of course, within the bounds
of Ontolog's simple IPR and membership policies.) (028)
Those who don't like it, may even call that "steal," rob,"
hijack," or whatever derogatory term they may think of, but within the
bounds of our CWE and our IPR and membership policies, that is allow,
and encouraged. ... The recourse, for those who don't like it has been
clearly stated in our IPR policy, they "should [just] refrain from
contributing." ... Be it known, that Ontolog is not intended to be an
IPR repository. Anyone seeking IPR protection is most probably better
served by other means (like keeping their IPR under wraps as trade
secrets, going about copyrighting, trade marking, service marking or
patenting their work instead.) (029)
2. *Thoughts on the Letter of the Ontolog IPR Policy and OPR protection
in general* (030)
Ontolog is a CoP ... it is NOT a legal entity. (031)
IPR to contributions that goes into the Ontolog archived CWE (and hence
the collective body of knowledge) belong to the
individual(s) who made the contribution (to the extent traceable.) (032)
Conversely, breaches of IPR can only come from individuals or parties
who are in the act of making the breach. (033)
To properly understand what the Ontolog IPR Policy entails, I would
suggest that anyone interested should read through those few bullets
(under:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid32 ) as well as
the articles behind the links there. (034)
Try reading up on: (035)
* The Free Software Definition -
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html (036)
* The Open Source definition -
http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php (037)
* Open Source Licenses - http://opensource.org/licenses/category (038)
* Open Standards Requirements - http://opensource.org/osr-intro (039)
* Creative Commons License -
http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses (040)
... one should also find the readings recently suggested by PeterBenson
(http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontology-summit/2008-05/msg00011.html)
and ChristopherBaker
(http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontology-summit/2008-05/msg00012.html)
very helpful too. (041)
I suspect people who are not familiar with IP, IPR and IPR protection
might easily miss the following basic tenets (prevalent under regimes
where I operate,) and therefore, I list a few pertinent ones below just
so we are all on the same page: (042)
* the purpose of IPR statutes, in general, are there to foster
innovation and permit the free flow of ideas (043)
* one cannot patent an idea ... one only goes about patenting suitably
qualified inventions, process, software, plants, etc. (044)
* to patent an anything, it has to be (a) novel, and (b) non-obvious (in
particular, non-obvious to someone knowledgeable in the field.) (045)
* one cannot copyright a word, a title, a short phrase, etc. (046)
* one cannot copyright an idea ... one only copyrights its expression in
an Original Work of Authorship (OWA) (say, a drawing, a piece of
writing, a music composition, etc.) (047)
Once again, IANAL; therefore, anyone who has issues with what is said
here is advised to consult an IP professional for clarification. If I
got things wrong, please correct me so I can get it right the next time. (048)
I hope the above helps clarify matters. (049)
Regards. =ppy (050)
Peter Yim
Co-convener, Ontolog
-- (051)
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