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Announcement
WHAT: Steering Group Teleconference
WHEN: Monday, May 5, 2008 at 21:00 - 22:00 GMT
- San Francisco: 2pm
- Boston: 5pm
- London: 10pm
- Berlin: 11pm
- Hong Kong: 5am (May 6)
- Tokyo: 6am (May 6)
- Sydney: 7am (May 6)
WHO: Open to any contributors
WHERE:
PRE WORK:
PROPOSED AGENDA:
- Introductions
- Legal Project Overview (Brady Brim-DeForest)
- Key Questions
- Research Assignments
- Steering Group Call Frequency (J. Trent Adams)
- add additional topics (+ your name)
MEETING OUTPUT:
Minutes
Attendees:
Real Name (Skype Name)
J. Trent Adams (jtrentadams)
Christian Scholtz (herrtopf)
Brett McDowel (myidiym)
Greg Kohn (with IEEE-ISTO) (noskype)
Brady Brim-DeForest (bradybd)
David Rudin (drudin)
Bob Ngu (bobngu)
Steve Greenberg (greenbes)
Chris Saad (chris.saad)
Minutes:
Overview of Options:
A. Incorporation
B. Umbrella Organizations
C. Association Management Companies
Overview of Mentors / Precedent:
* Creative Commons
* DVD Forum
* Blu-ray Disc Association
* IEEE LAN/MAN Standards Committee
* Identity Commons
* OpenID
* Wi-fi Alliance
From: http://wiki.dataportability.org/display/dpmain/DataPortability+Legal+Entity+Taskforce
Brady: Asking individuals to step up and research individual solutions hasn't met with success.
Brady: Looking for a better model for researching options.
IEEE-ISTO Discussion
Brady: asked Greg Kohn with IEEE-ISTO to give an overview of the organization.
Greg: IEEE-ISTO 501(c)6) offers services to their members, are not an association management company. They work in the standards and industry specifications space and align themselves with organizations that have similar culture and values. They offer the full gamut of administrative management services: account, IT, marketing and communications. Prevailing benefit: turn-key approach
David: Is there a default rules structure applied by IEEE-ISTO?
Greg: Templates and best practices exist, but there is no formal requirement.
Brady: How is the ownership of IP handled by IEEE-ISTO?
Greg: ISTO would own the IP, but in trust for the DataPortability Project. Services are available for the management and transfer of IP as necessary. Offer full portability.
Greg: Similarly, IEEE-ISTO can hold funds in the same manner as IP. Full portability of funds - can be placed in any instrument of DataPortability's choosing.
Brady: What are the costs involved, both to set up and ongoing?
Greg: Broad range, based on the services required by the entity. Low end ($1500/month) relies only on the legal/insurance fees, while high end ($10,000+/month) can include a full range of services. At the low end, organizations receive benefits of legal umbrella, insurance, and mailing address. Very simple cost structure
Brady: What kind of timeline are we looking at?
Greg: We've been able get organizations fully operational within a couple weeks.
Brady: What are the qualifications and requirements for DataPortability to become an ISTO organization?
Greg: Three factors: 1) Org needs a clearly defined governance model. 2) Org must embrace, adopt and implement an anti-trust policy. 3) Funding model must be in place that allows for long-term viability and growth.
The most strict requirement is that the IEEE-ISTO associations must define an Anti-Trust Policy. Templates are available for adoption, and guidance is available.
sustainable funding model for the association must be in place to fund their membership to IEEE-ISTO.
Greg: Supportive of the concept that IEEE-ISTO might be a reasonable "holding pattern" even for a short period of time.
Brady: What organizations already supported by ISTO represent the closest analogy to DataPortability?
Greg: The closest model to the DataPortability Project within IEEE-ISTO is the Scope Alliance: http://www.scope-alliance.org/
Brett: Mission and purpose are similar, but how will IEEE-ISTO support the non-traditional needs of the DataPortability Project where membership is much lighter? Perhaps like Power.org?
Greg: Can support both individual and corporate memberships. There are a few hybrid models within IEEE-ISTO we could explore. The challenge will be the funding model of DataPortability. DataPortability is not a typical industry consortium.
Brady: As an example, how would being a member of IEEE-ISTO help with problems like the tradmark C&D?
Greg: IEEE-ISTO has access to broad range of legal providers, and would help connect the organization, but any specific legal costs would be shouldered by DataPortability.
Chris: Would it be OK for the DataPortability Project to bring their own council in?
Greg: Legal engagement contracts would be signed by IEEE-ISTO, if they come through their door. Organizations can, however, set up their own council, looping IEEE-ISTO into the discussions.
Action Item: Greg will circulate more details and be available to answer questions on the discussion lists.
Trent: High-level overview of the option to explore possibility of joining forces with Project VRM to explore working together to form a common association management entity under the aegis of the Berkman Center. (http://wiki.dataportability.org/x/H4Ej)
Brady: We should continue to explore short term solutions.
Trent: Suggest we take advantage of Brett's proposal to stop-gap using Liberty Alliance
Brett: Clarified his offer (listen to call for details).
Trent: Further suggest we take advantage of the offer, use the time it buys us to answer the next question: Incorporation or Umbrella Organization? Then we can still jump up a level to IEEE-ISTO, if it becomes necessary prior to knowing the full answer.
David: Mild concern about what we may be giving up for this protection. Want to make sure we clearly understand the ramifications.
Brady: How do we engage a wider audience to perform this research and leg work? And how are we going to put in place a process to make the necessary decisions?
David: Suggest we pay more attention to umbrella organizations with an existing set of rules we can easily adopt. For example W3C, OASIS.
Trent: Couldn't we leverage the existing models that are available from IEEE-ISTO?
David: Perhaps, but the concern is that DataPortability needs to avoid any "blank slate" discussions.
Brady: Should we continue with the survey to solicit public comment?
Trent: I don't believe so, I think everyone who wants to be involved can do so on the calls and discussions.
Steve: +1
Action Items:
1. Brady needs people to champion solutions.
2. Brady will broaden the education that this discussion is taking place in lieu of the survey.
3. Brady will reach out to Brett to flesh out the Liberty Alliance option.
4. Brady will reach out to Greg for inclusion.
5. Governance Taskforce needs to complete it's work before legal formalization can complete.
Conference call recording, back channel transcript
Next meetings
- May 12th, 2008 - 21:00 GMT
Feedback on the meeting itself
