JCP and Licensing

If you still think IP stands for Internet Protocol, then please do not read on; stay in that oblivious and happy state. In the "real" world it has become Intellectual Property and it has become an endless struggle. I live on the edge where the two meanings of the IP acronym meet daily. One day I work on technical problems; figuring out the eternally evolving puzzle of design. Other days, I have to switch dictionary so I can translate the words from legalese to something that (I think) I can understand. Suddenly words get different semantics; a for me crystal clear sentence gets corporate people very upset because there might be hidden meanings. Then they need expensive lawyers to have a look at it. These lawyers rarely tell you exactly what to do; they just look worried. How effective are these lawyers? The judicial system is often treated as one big lottery, so few companies dare to sue when IP is concerned. I was actually shocked when Novell and SCO could dispute the ownership of Unix from the contract that was supposed to govern this.

However, the most interesting aspect of the referenced article is how an organization that acts as a standardization institute can have widely different IP rules. The OSGi Alliance has a single membership agreement that governs all IP related issues. Part of these rules is the Statement of Work that specifically defines a subject area where the IP rules of the OSGi Alliance apply. We strive to make the specifications patent free, but as the open source community knows, that is very hard to establish. There is at least a requirement that OSGi members declare there IP before the specification is published. The specifications are made available to the public so that anybody can implement it without paying license fees to the OSGi Alliance. Maybe not perfect, but in the current imperfect world it seems a good balance.

The JCP works very differently, which was a surprising discovery to me. In the JCP, the spec lead owns all the IP of the spec. This allows the spec lead set its own terms. This terms should be set at the start of the JSR but the spec lead can make amendments at any time. So for example, MIDP is owned by Motorola; they make money on this spec by licensing the TCKs to other vendors. Without the MIDP TCK, you cannot claim to be MIDP compliant. Of course the open source community balked at this because they cannot pay the usual fee of $50k dollars per TCK. They were bribed by having restricted access to the TCKs as well as a board seat on the executive committee; This was good for the JCP because the open source community could supply the reference implementations this way; something commercial companies do not like to spent resources on.

Sun Microsystems, Inc. is a little bit more equal than the others because JCP is not an independent organization, it is a part of SUN. When you sign the JSPA, you sign it with SUN Microsystems Inc., not JCP; the JCP is not a legal entity. I hear rumors that SUN has additional rights with the spec lead, but as a non spec lead I cannot confirm those rumors.

So what IP rules govern an JSR? You do not know until you have understood the license terms as set by the spec lead. As a mere member of an EG, you are allowed to contribute as many good ideas as you like; the spec lead will love to charge the money for it. So one JSR is not another JSR. Then again, it is all legalese and I am not a lawyer ...

  Peter Kriens

posted by Peter @ Thursday, July 14, 2005