OpenID Foundation/Board/Minutes/2007-03-15
These are the approved minutes from the meeting of the 15th March 2007.
Present:
- Bill Washburn (moderating)
- Johannes Ernst
- Martin Atkins (note-taker)
- Scott Kveton
- David Recordon
- Dick Hardt
- Drummond Reed
Apologies:
- Artur Bergman
Meeting opened 19:05 UTC
Contents |
Approval of Minutes from previous meetings
Proposal to approve previous meeting minutes with Bill's revisions as posted on the mailing list.
Unanimously accepted by all present.
Schedule of Meetings
It was decided that this would be discussed further on the mailing list.
IPR
The board was reminded that Microsoft and other companies remain concerned that there is no way to withdraw from the OpenID community if it becomes necessary for legal reasons.
There is a meeting at Microsoft's HQ about OpenID and Cardspace integration and this IPR issue is on the agenda for that meeting.
The board will seek advice from lawyers at interested companies and also from independent lawyers regarding how best to proceed.
OpenID Europe Foundation
It became apparent during the preceding week that the OpenID Europe Foundation is getting underway.
The board was contacted by Sebastien Sacard via email acting as a translator and point of contact for the Europe Foundation.
The board agreed that it is very important for us to get a conversation going between us and the Europe Foundation so that the two foundations can compliment one another rather than duplicating work or clashing.
However, the board also agreed that a more pressing issue is getting "our" foundation underway, which is already consuming most of our currently-limited resources.
Noting that intellectual property, and in particular trademarks, are likely to be the first point of concern for both foundations, it was agreed that the foundations must work together to ensure that the OpenID trademark policy is consistent in all countries because OpenID is international.
The board also noted that the OpenID Europe Foundation seems to be involved in the provision of OpenID-related services as well as IPR/marketing concerns. This is in contrast with "our" foundation which considers that out of scope and the job of external vendors.
Martin was nominated as the primary point of contact at our end because he is in the UK.
Trademarks
Johannes reported on the progress so far towards a published Trademark policy for the use of the OpenID trademarks.
It was noted that the primary concern is to identify what the OpenID trademark will be used for.
It was agreed that the OpenID trademark would be used on "official" OpenID specifications, and third-parties would not be allowed to use the trademark in the name of any specifications they publish.
However, this did raise a concern that this would inadvertantly put the OpenID Foundation in the position of "approving" specs in some sense, since the foundation would control the trademark and thus the stamp of approval. The Foundation has explicitly excluded the writing and publishing of specs from its scope.
A list of potential uses for the trademark was identified as follows:
- Specifications
- Domain names
- Software, Hardware and Online Services
- Clothing and other merchandise
- Conferences
The board concluded that it was not yet ready to make a decision about trademark policy for non-specification uses.
However, the following issues were agreed:
- There will be a Trademark Policy page on the website containing the finished policy
- The trademark will be used in the names of published specifications
- The Foundation must identify a policy for what specifications and services get to use the term "OpenID".
Foundation Organisation and Bylaws
Dick put forward a proposal for the structure of the organisation on the mailing list earlier in the week.
Funding Model
A concern was raised that, despite the fact that conferences had been identified as a long-term revenue source, the board as a whole was not aware of how profitable conferences are.
Dick explained that in most conferences the entry fee generally just covers the costs of putting on the conference, but the real money comes from sponsorship of the event.
It was agreed that the main advantage of conferences was to bring people in the community together, which is a big goal for the foundation.
However, a long-term funding model still needs to be established.
Sponsorship
Dick's proposal allowed for two kinds of involvement for organisations:
- founding sponsor: recognition of supporting OpenID
- founding board sponsor: same as founding sponsor plus seat on board
However, concerns were raised that this pushed the foundation closer to being a "pay to play" organisation.
It was acknowledged that financial contributors will want to have some say in how money is spent.
An alternative proposal was to offer membership on a budgetary oversight board, which will have some influence in the spending of money but not in the overall running of the organisation.
It was further clarified that since the foundation is not involved in the writing of the specifications this influence would only be on the IPR, Marketing and other efforts the foundation persues.
It was agreed that a more complete plan would be put together and proposed to the community to gauge reactions.
Meeting closed 20:00 UTC
