All, (01)
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. (02)
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. (03)
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. (04)
1. *The Spirit of the Ontolog IPR Policy* (05)
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." (06)
By "open," as our very simple IPR policy states: (ref.
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid32 ) (07)
//
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy (32) (08)
* 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) (09)
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) (010)
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) (011)
o those who are unable to contribute under the above
licensing arrangements should refrain from contributing to the
[ontolog-forum] content. (36)
// (012)
Our membership policy also states: (ref.
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J ) (013)
//
* this is an OPEN, virtual Community of Practice ("CoP"),
operated by the community itself (1M) (014)
* 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) (015)
... (016)
* please ensure that your posts are relevant (to our Community
Charter), and that it complies with our IPR Policy. (ZBG) (017)
* 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)
// (018)
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." (019)
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. (020)
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.) (021)
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.) (022)
2. *Thoughts on the Letter of the Ontolog IPR Policy and OPR
protection in general* (023)
Ontolog is a CoP ... it is NOT a legal entity. (024)
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.) (025)
Conversely, breaches of IPR can only come from individuals or
parties who are in the act of making the breach. (026)
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. (027)
Try reading up on: (028)
* The Free Software Definition -
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html (029)
* The Open Source definition -
http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php (030)
* Open Source Licenses - http://opensource.org/licenses/category (031)
* Open Standards Requirements - http://opensource.org/osr-intro (032)
* Creative Commons License -
http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses (033)
... 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. (034)
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: (035)
* the purpose of IPR statutes, in general, are there to foster
innovation and permit the free flow of ideas (036)
* one cannot patent an idea ... one only goes about patenting
suitably qualified inventions, process, software, plants, etc. (037)
* to patent an anything, it has to be (a) novel, and (b)
non-obvious (in particular, non-obvious to someone knowledgeable
in the field.) (038)
* one cannot copyright a word, a title, a short phrase, etc. (039)
* 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.) (040)
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. (041)
I hope the above helps clarify matters. (042)
Regards. =ppy (043)
Peter Yim
Co-convener, Ontolog
-- (044)
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