Open Repository Guidelines and Procedures

This version of the Open Repository Guidelines and Procedures was approved by the OASIS Board of Directors on 14 June 2022 and became effective immediately. The change was announced to OASIS members on 01 July 2022 in https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/members/202207/msg00000.html

Table of Contents

Overview OASIS TC Open Repositories are a distinct class of information and sharing portals (for example, a GitHub project), that can be set up to support and complement the work of an OASIS Technical Committee (“TC”). These repositories add the strengths of open source development to OASIS’ existing stable and well-recognized governance process.

1. REPOSITORY DEFINITION

An OASIS TC Open Repository (“TC Open Repository”) is a distinct facility operated by OASIS for collection of voluntarily contributed information relevant to the work of a specific TC, under the rules set forth in these procedures. TC Open Repositories may reside on third-party server resources. See REPOSITORY TOOLS below.

2. REPOSITORIES ARE INITIATED BY OASIS TCs

Any Eligible OASIS TC may create one or more TC Open Repositories at its election, by a simple majority vote of its membership, conducted in the same manner as is used to approve other administrative matters consistent with the OASIS TC Process (an “Administrative Vote”). TC Open Repositories may only be created by, and in connection with the work of, Eligible OASIS TCs.

An “Eligible OASIS TC” is a currently-active OASIS TC that is operating under the Non-Assertion, RF on Limited Terms, or RF on RAND IPR Mode as defined by the OASIS IPR Policy.

3. REPOSITORIES ARE SEPARATE FROM A TC’S SPECIFICATION WORK

TC Open Repositories created by a TC are separate and distinct resources from the TC’s specification work. Specification work, sometimes described as the TC’s work product, is governed by the OASIS TC Process, and available under the licensing terms of the OASIS IPR Policy. In contrast, TC Open Repository contents are governed by these rules, and available under an open source license as provided here. Because different licenses apply, there is no guarantee that the licensure of specific material in a TC Open Repository will be compatible with the licensing requirements of an implementation of a TC’s specification.

No TC member shall have any obligation to join, contribute to, or reference, any TC Open Repository. Members of an OASIS TC incur no other licensing or disclosure obligations by reason of any TC Open Repository, unless that member explicitly contributes to it under these rules. See REPOSITORY LICENSES AND LICENSING RULES below.

TC Open Repository contributions (“repo contributions”) and contents are not automatically also contributed to the TC’s Work Product as specification “Contributions” as defined in the OASIS IPR Policy. TC members may choose to use any contents of an Open repository in TC specification development, by taking the separate, additional step of offering that material as their own “Contributions” to the TC’s Work Product under the OASIS IPR Policy. Each member is responsible for determining the suitability of their own contributions.

4. REPOSITORY LICENSES AND LICENSING RULES

Each TC Open Repository will be subject to a declared “Applicable License,” selected from the list of licenses at the end of this section. The Applicable License for a repository will apply to all repo contributions donated to the repository, by posting it or requesting its inclusion in that repository. Anyone, whether an OASIS member or TC member or not, may contribute into a TC Open Repository, subject to the Applicable License, as evidenced in the manner noted in LICENSE TOOLS AND NOTICES below. Anyone (including but not limited to the TC that created it) will be entitled to make use of the contents of a TC Open Repository, according to the terms of its Applicable License.

The TC creating a TC Open Repository will select its Applicable License at the time of its creation from among the set of eligible licenses then provided in the OASIS Open Project Rules.

5. PURPOSE STATEMENT AND CONTENTS

Each TC Open Repository should have a purpose statement, indicating its intended contents or topic, declared by the TC that creates it, as part of its approval action. If the TC’s approval action specifies no purpose statement, then the purpose shall be any kind of information including examples, code, implementation details, bug reports, and actual, model or dummy content that may relate to the Work Products to be produced by that TC as defined in its charter.

6. ARCHIVAL PERMANENCE

OASIS warrants that it will not inhibit open and free access to all of the material contributed to each TC Open Repository, as open and freely-available resources. This warranty is perpetual and will not be revoked by OASIS or its successors or assigns; however, neither OASIS nor its assigns shall be obligated to: (a) perpetually maintain its own existence; nor (b) provide for the perpetual existence of a website or other public means of accessing such material; nor (c) maintain any material which it is legally required to remove from publication. Some contributed material may be treated as superseded by Maintainers or by version control methods. See REPOSITORY MANAGEMENT below. However, Maintainers shall not delete content; the original form of each repo contribution shall continue to be available for review, through appropriate version control or document management methodologies.

7. REPOSITORY MANAGEMENT

When a TC creates a TC Open Repository, it shall designate one or two TC members to act as its initial “Maintainer(s)”, by an Administrative Vote, to organize the material in that repository. Maintainers may exercise editorial organization of the contents of their TC Open Repository, including by classifying it, evaluating and responding to pull requests, designating main or recommended branches, and designating deprecated branches or material. However, no contributed information may be deleted from any TC Open Repository, due to the open nature of Applicable Licenses and the ARCHIVAL PERMANENCE rule. In cooperation with the community, the Maintainer(s) and the TC may select additional or successor Maintainer(s) to share responsibilities for the repository. See REPOSITORY LIFECYCLE below.

8. REPOSITORY TOOLS

OASIS will create and support TC Open Repositories using web resource tools, selected and configured by staff, that are clearly marked as a distinct resource, and under different Internet subdomains, from the Work Product of a TC conducted under the OASIS IPR Policy and TC Process. OASIS initially will create TC Open Repositories as either distinct GitHub projects, or distinct Subversion repositories. (OASIS periodically will review other widely-used tools, either hosted by OASIS or from appropriate and commercially-neutral third parties, for inclusion in this list of available platforms, by amending these procedures.)

9. LICENSE TOOLS AND NOTICES

Each TC Open Repository shall be subject to a Contributor License Agreement (“CLA”) by which all persons making repo contributions into it are bound. The CLA shall bind each donor of a repo contribution to the repository’s Applicable License and such other consistent terms as OASIS may require as a publisher to assure its availability. While certain nominal write-access privileges (such as adding issues and comments) may be granted automatically to the public by the tools, only persons who have signed the CLA will be permitted to contribute substantive content. Each person making a repo contribution must be bound to the terms of the CLA, by obtaining their signature (which may be an equivalent electronic assent) in a manner appropriate to the web resources tools employed to implement that repository; and those signatures shall be recorded and maintained in an auditable manner. Notices of the Applicable License or an appropriate link shall be conspicuously visible both from each repository’s contribution channels (for potential contributors of material) and resource pages (for potential readers and users). See the OASIS TC Open Repositories FAQ for details about the form and location of the notices.

10. REPOSITORY LIFECYCLE

Once a TC Open Repository has been created by an Eligible OASIS TC, it will remain open as a resource for public use and reference, and continuing contributions, after the OASIS TC is closed, under the ARCHIVAL PERMANENCE rule above, with such remaining Maintainers as may have been appointed. A TC may, if it so elects, designate a successor Eligible OASIS TC, by an Administrative Vote at any time prior to its closure, to assume its remaining responsibilities to its TC Open Repository.

Open Repository Guidelines and Procedures

The work of OASIS is supported by organizations from around the world. Members include: