-----Original Message-----
From: openchain-bounces@... [mailto:openchain-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Karen Sandler
Sent: den 16 december 2014 05:18
To: Marr, David
Cc: openchain@...
Subject: Re: [OpenChain] Chatham House Rules?

On 2014-12-15 18:55, Marr, David wrote:

Great questions. Since we haven’t had formal governance discussions to
date, I’d suggest any application of such norms be by consensus and
only going forward.

For the open mailing list, new additions would also be asked to adhere
to such principles. One implementation has been to announce new member
additions in an email that contains a reminder of the governance
principles. However these are details. Overall I don’t see an
administrative barrier that can not be addressed to adopting CHR if
folks support doing so. From a LF values perspective, would CHR pose
an issue?

Coming to Joseph’s questions, I wouldn’t try to directly draw legal
significance to a normative statement of how a community chooses to
self-govern.

As to the good example of sharing of communication within one’s
organization, I’m open to however folks wish to apply CHR. Perhaps an
easy bright line rule can be simply to not mention identity or
affiliation outside the meeting, period. Meeting minutes can exclude
such details as well.

I also find CHR confusing when applied to mailing lists and other "meetings" that aren't really meetings. I also never know if it's ok to reveal that someone participated in the call, email or meeting at all.
Since so much of what we do in FOSS is out in the open it can be really hard to remember what was said under CHR and what wasn't. I really like just using the rule that we respect people's request for anonymity when they ask for it ("don't quote me on this"). It's really simple, very easy to remember those situations after the fact and just a nice polite way to interact :)

I'm also happy to discuss tomorrow.
karen

Regarding an express community statement that for purposes of our
discussion the comments of a participant should not be attributed to
their employer, I’m okay with that too, perhaps as an addition to CHR
because it addresses slightly different aspects.

Inviting add’l insight, thanks.

FROM: Mike Dolan [mailto:mdolan@...]
SENT: Monday, December 15, 2014 6:44 AM
TO: Joseph Potvin
CC: Marr, David; openchain@...
SUBJECT: Re: [OpenChain] Chatham House Rules?

Dave, are you suggesting CHR be applied to a particular area (e.g. the
minutes) or broader? Application of CHR to an open mailing list (with
archives clearly identifying the source of each message) or to the
wiki (which tracks changes by user) would both be difficult to
implement under CHR.

---
Mike Dolan
Director of Strategic Programs, The Linux Foundation

Office: +1.330.460.3250 Cell: +1.440.552.5322 Skype: michaelkdolan
Email / Google Talk: mdolan@...
---

On Dec 13, 2014, at 9:21 PM, Joseph Potvin <jpotvin@...> wrote:

RE: "When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House
Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but
neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that
of any other participant, may be revealed."

This is a useful and interesting mini-issue to resolve for a
multi-entity community concerned with compliance management. I suggest
for your consideration that CHR, its longevity notwithstanding, is so
broadly worded that its relative popularity almost surely depends upon
rather loose compliance generally. (As in: Please put up your hand if
you have NOT knowlingly streamed a movie in violation of copyright
within the past year.)

If my assessment of the CHR is true, it's probably not the best choice
for this group.

When I read the CHR, my first question is: What is presumed to happen
if the rule is violated?

My second question is: Would this rule be violated simply when someone
outside the conversation says verbally to a colleague in their own
organization who was not in the meeting: "Well, that Potvin fellow was
suggesting that the CHR would be problematic." Or, if somebody says
externally: "Yes, the guy from Qualcomm was in the conference call
today." Ambiguity about the boundaries is precisely what breeds
complacency regarding compliance, I would suggest.

Am I (in)correct in interpreting the CHR to be, de jure, if fully
respected, a partial but very strict NDA in which all participants
agree to fully exercise their moral right of non-attribution during
each OpenChain interaction?

My other concern is that the CHR seems to run contrary to the
free/libre/open way, where expectations are usually the other way
around: attribution of ideas is what we (free/libre/open software
creators) proactively do by default. Legal counsel has other
constraints, that's understood. But we have not yet (this being the
weekend, granted) heard any specific comment back on my suggestion
that "The usual caveat applies..." so that what people say is deemed
to emanate from their own heads, and not from THE corporate heads.

Joseph

On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 7:08 PM, Marr, David <dmarr@...>
wrote:

Responding to Joseph's question, the initial motivation was merely to
promote open discussion on the substantive OpenChain topics. I think
of CHR as a behavioral norm under which OpenChain list members might
-- as a community -- decide to abide. I agree with prior comments it's
not intended as agreement with legal formality.

Restated for convenience:
"When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House
Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but
neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that
of any other participant, may be revealed."

Btw on re-read I would note the subject line I picked isn't quite
correct; it's not "rules". There's just one rule.

I'm also fine with the normative statement that one's comments should
not be attributed to their employer -- but see this as already partly
covered by CHR. If more is needed, welcoming discussion.

I'll add one more thing. The reason I'm concerned about reducing
barriers to participation is because I deeply appreciate folks taking
the time to join the calls, adding their ideas and generally helping
drive progress -- and make corrections as needed. Because of that I'd
like to do as much as possible to help deliver to expectations, and
with some degree of pace. So if anyone was held back by the same
issues that caused Chatham House to come up with their rule nearly 100
years ago, perhaps adding their time-tested rule would help.

Note also the concern about transparency should be limited to the
identity and affiliation of any participant. The substantive comments
can be used -- filtered for identity and affiliation -- which one
hopes would be useful.
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--

Joseph Potvin
Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations The Opman Company |
La compagnie Opman jpotvin@...
Mobile: 819-593-5983

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