Summary of recent SNIA IP Policy Changes

The changes to the SNIA IP Policy from v2.0 (August 2003) to v3.0 (September 2006) are specifically to allow software to be developed within the SNIA in the same manner as is used to develop architecture, and to impose the obligations of the IP Policy to SNIA Software in addition to SNIA Architecture. The following points describe the major restrictions around this software development.

1) SNIA Software is to be developed within TWGs utilizing similar processes as those used for architecture development. All SNIA Software is to be developed within TWGs and must be approved by a 75% supermajority of the SNIA Voting Members prior to being released outside of the SNIA.

2) Software contributions must be compatible with the inbound and outbound licensing terms chosen by the TWGs and the contributors are required to represent that they have the authority to make such contributions and that, to their knowledge, the contributions do not infringe the copyrights, patents, or trade secrets of any person or entity.

3) Participants in a TWG that develop SNIA Software are also required to grant a license for the SNIA Software that is consistent with the terms of the outbound license agreement and if the SNIA Software is to be distributed under an outbound license that permits the modification and redistribution of the SNIA Software, then at least one identified outbound license must be compatible with commercial software distribution such as the Berkeley Software Distribution ("BSD") license.

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Phil Mills - Senior Technical Staff, IBM Storage
Director & Secretary, SNIA Board of Directors
Home Office & Fax: (408) 404-6233
Cell: (408) 623-6840 
millsp@us.ibm.com