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- Original The Apache Software Foundation
Board of Directors Special Meeting Minutes
July 9, 2007
1. Call to order
The meeting was scheduled for 11:00 (Pacific) and was begun when
a sufficient attendance to constitute a quorum was recognized by
the chairman at 11:05. The meeting was held by teleconference,
hosted by Jim Jagielski and Covalent:
US Number : 800-531-3250
International : 303-928-2693
IRC #asfboard on irc.freenode.net was be used for backup
purposes.
2. Roll Call
Directors Present:
Justin Erenkrantz
J Aaron Farr
Jim Jagielski
Geir Magnusson Jr
William Rowe Jr
Sam Ruby
Henning Schmiedehausen
Greg Stein
Henri Yandell
Guests:
Matt Hogstrom
Craig McClanahan
Craig Russell
Davanum Srinivas
Sander Striker
3. Minutes from previous meetings
Tabled until next regular meeting
4. Executive Officer Reports
A. Chairman [Jim]
Tabled until next regular meeting
B. President [Justin]
Tabled until next regular meeting
C. Treasurer [J Aaron]
Tabled until next regular meeting
D. Exec. V.P. and Secretary [Sam]
Tabled until next regular meeting
5. Additional Officer Reports
A. VP of JCP [Geir]
Geir mentioned a recent conversation with Sun, gave an overview of
the ongoing discussions proceeding on jcp-open and board@, and then
the board proceeded quickly into discussion. As usual, formal report
is expected occur at the next board meeting (9 days).
6. Committee Reports
Tabled until next regular meeting
7. Special Orders
None
8. Discussion Items
A. New ASF/JCP Policy, including statements on NDAs, FOUs,
as well as action/reaction schedules and timeframes. The intent
is to come up with a clear policy, standards by which the ASF
will continue to participate in the JCP, changes required for
that participation and our course of action if such changes
are not implemented.
The board discussed the perceived and real NDA requirements on our
committers, EC and EG representatives.
These break down into four classes of restrictions, and the corresponding
board positions.
* NDA of contracts and contractual discussion
There was some concern expressed over the private nature of these
discussions being both unnecessary and reducing our options for
addressing differences; but overall the board was willing to let
these discussions continue in private, as all other parties in the
JCP are doing.
Geir identified that at least one reference license for the TCK should
be shared prior to the conclusion and approval of a JSR, and recent
commentary by other EC members appears to share this position.
Geir identified that we have permission to share the (final) contracts
with any 'interested party', although these would not necessarily be
published on the website.
* NDA of the Specification Development Process
The Board determined that today, the ASF encourages but otherwise has
no opinion on open specifications development processes vs. closed
development processes. It was pointed out that perfectly reasonable
specifications have come from a single individual or closed groups,
just as perfectly irrational specifications have come from open groups.
As such - the ASF will continue to put forward EG representatives to
either open or closed specification development bodies outside of the
ASF. This does not change the policy that all ASF development
discussions occur on open lists, here.
The Board reserves the possibility of revisiting this policy in future
years. The important point, the ASF Board does not seek to impose a
specific methodology on outside, non-ASF efforts.
* NDA to Use the TCK
The Board is concerned about the burden and additional paperwork that
we require of our committers to obtain the ASF's copy of TCKs and
other reference material. Some of these works are under commercial,
non-open license terms. As such, we will investigate if the NDA
agreement is redundant, and if there are other/better ways to
inform our committers of their responsibility under the material's
own license, without additional obligations. The Board remains
concerned about the possible burdens that are imposed by these TCKs,
and will work to achieve fewer burdens on the users of TCKs and
reference material through the JCP processes in creating open source
implementations of the specification. As such, the ASF will seek
a change the JCP establishing a date beyond which there will be no
new TCKs created with NDA requirements.
* NDA of the TCK Results
The Board was informed there is a great deal of confusion over the
exact restrictions imposed on the TCK results, and the ability of
committers to discuss these matters over public development lists.
Geir has taken an action item on this to write up the actual
constraints on the use of the TCK results, so that the scope of the
actual restrictions are better understood by the community, and so
that no unnecessary secrecy is applied to development discussion.
This will be posted to the JCP area of the ASF website. The Board
understands that the net result of the reasonable interpretation of
the TCK Usage license does not result in NDA obstacles to open source
development.
* Copyright of .dtd/.xsd files and other Reference Material
As an additional action item, the Board will research the scope of
pieces of reference material which have been committed to ASF
repositories, and to whatever extent possible, will try to provide
guidance on the use of these materials on the JCP area of the ASF
website. Examples are files from the Spec Lead that contain
confidentiality or other absurd clauses, when compared the
requirement of their use in implementing the public, published
specification.
9. Review Outstanding Action Items
Geir: update http://www.apache.org/jcp/ with:
* A constructive summary of what discussions and progress we have
had with Sun
* A mention of the long term plans to remove the requirement for TCK
NDAs.
* A pointer to where the next steps will be developed (namely jcp-open@)
* an authoritative statement on what TCK aspects can be discussed in
public based on the TCK NDAs.
Status: new
Bill: coordinate with Geir, and see if we can engage our lawyers to
assist us with the JCK/FOU contract dispute.
Status: new
Geir: draft schedule for the next two to three months outlining options
and strategies by the next board meeting.
Status: new
Sam: Copyright/license of .dtd/.xsd files and other Reference Material
Review (and possibly update) <http://www.apache.org/legal/3party.html>.
Status: new
10. Unfinished Business
11. New Business
12. Announcements
13. Adjournment
Scheduled to adjourn by 1:00 (Pacific). Adjourned at 12:42pm.
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End of minutes for the July 9, 2007 board special meeting.
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