[Minutes] SG Meeting 2018-02-08

[henceproved]

SG sync notes from 2/8:

Agenda topics
-- Mike Smith’s issue to SG
-- Anne’s issue about non-normative changes
-- Next steps on Legal Advisory Group proposal shared with SG

Mike Smith case: issue
@henceproved: Legal counsel had a meeting yesterday and said, according to WHATWG current policy, Mike’s organization would have to sign the agreement, since he is working in browser tech for Keio University. They also cautioned the SG to not make one-off exceptions, since it undermines the IPR in place.
@othermaciej: We could raise with W3C. It would require hosting orgs to join, since they are actual employers of the staff.
@henceproved: Do we know what W3C is doing in such cases, for their staff who officially work for the hosting orgs?
@othermaciej: We don’t know.
@henceproved: Ok, let’s ask W3C then, while our legal counsel look into that. Time in meetings is a problem. Let’s just send an email.
Action taken: @othermaciej sent email to W3C and Jeff has said he will follow up with hosting organizations.

Non-normative changes - issue raised by @annevk
@othermaciej: Lawyers sometimes agree that certain things can be implemented without impact on copyright. Definition of “trivial” in copyright sense is not the same as non-normative. We cannot have a blanket exception for non-normative changes. But, legal counsel can come up with some description of what counts as trivial for copyright purposes. Anne gave example of readme. We could say supporting documents don’t have guidelines as strict, but we cannot make any exception from copyright perspective.
@michaelchampion: Is Anne talking about pull requests?
@othermaciej: Not sure. But projects that take copyright seriously will make you follow all the rules around copyright ownership.
@dbaron: Some projects would consider typo fixes to not have copyright impact. If another person fixing the same thing would have had the exact same character changes…
@othermaciej: If we want to offer that, we need to have lawyers draw something up.
Action taken: @othermaciej responded on the thread, and there is an ongoing discussion there

Legal Advisory Group proposal
@henceproved: The lawyers have a proposal (privately discussing) on creating such a group. What are the next steps for that? We all had questions/comments.
@othermaciej: Let’s ask them for a new draft.
Action taken: @henceproved responded asking if they are working on a new draft, legal counsel want us to prepare an SG response that has consensus.