[cabfpub] Draft Ballot re: participation of standards-setting, auditing, and regulatory body representatives

[Gervase Markham]

On 19/10/12 00:18, Ben Wilson wrote:
> Because the potential for abuse of IPR held by standards bodies and
> regulatory bodies is substantially less than when that IPR is held by
> competitors?

But, depending on how the standards body is constituted, the person 
representing the body may also be an employee of a competitor.

To take an example: if Tim Moses ends up chairing this standards-setting 
working group thing (I forget the name exactly), then he could apply for 
non-IPR-signing observer/contributor status as a representative of it. 
But he works for Entrust.

One could say "well, then people should object and we'll have a vote on 
it", but the options are still only "exclude him" or "let him in without 
signing the IPR". "Make him sign the IPR" doesn't seem to be an option 
via this procedure.

Perhaps we could add a clause "no-one may become an observer under this 
procedure if they have a financial relationship with an organization 
which qualifies for membership in the CAB Forum as a CA or Browser", or 
words to that effect.

Gerv