RE: [nc-budget] Motivations and Explanations

["Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@verisign.com>]

Elisabeth,

Thanks for putting your concerns in writing, but I have to confess that
I do not understand what your concerns are.  Are you being asked to sign
an agreement or is AFNIC?  How would you be exposed to personal
liability?  Wouldn't your involvement in any agreements be between you
and AFNIC not between you and ICANN?

I hope my questions make sense.  I would really like to see this issue
resolved quickly.

Chuck

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Elisabeth Porteneuve [mailto:Elisabeth.Porteneuve@cetp.ipsl.fr]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 8:21 PM
> To: nc-budget@dnso.org
> Subject: [nc-budget] Motivations and Explanations
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What to do ?
> Maybe speaking or writing could help ?
> 
> 1. Re: voting software.
> 
> Sometimes my perception is that some of you think I want 
> to make money from the DNSO on my voting software, and 
> consequently I am targeted as if I were rich and powerful.
> Furthermore, my company, a not for profit organization
> is unpaid since months, and put fiscaly in danger.
> 
> It is not my intention to make money from the DNSO.
> 
> I wrote the software in 1996, in France, to answer a specific 
> need of a community of circa two hundred persons, and because 
> I liked to do it. (Neither AFNIC, nor ICANN existed in 1996.)
> I know all its defects and possible 
> improvements, the part which is painfully manual, and the part 
> which could be better. I know it does not scale. I know there 
> is no decent manual, it was not written for anybody else that 
> me to use it, and because writing manuals is extremely time 
> consuming. With all the above it fits the DNSO needs today, 
> as it did since 1999. Because this software is mine, I may show 
> how the algorithm goes, and publish records which go beyond 
> the result itself - to be generous and make understand voting 
> mechanism better. 
> 
> Knowing all the above, I want to grant the rights to use it to 
> the DNSO Names Council. The US terminology is "licensing". 
> The DNSO may use it as long as it is agreeable to them. 
> It is as it is, no guarantee, no lessons of math, as it is.
> 
> I cannot grant more. In no way I could accept that when I give 
> the rights to use a software, as a result I may put my life and 
> my children's one in danger of being sued, and demanded to give 
> more, to have strings attached.
> I do not want to make money from the DNSO. My point is I do 
> not want to loose my home and my money with a gift I made.
> 
> I know that the French contract, as drafted by my lawyer, 
> will protect me and my children against those who consider 
> that this offered software as it is gives them rights to demand 
> me more and more, over and over again.
> 
> 2. Re: dnso.org website
> 
> The dnso.org website is in France and benefits from the 
> French law with regards to the IP rights. Each and every 
> contribution on the dnso.org belongs to its author. From 
> practical standpoint it means that for example, nobody 
> may publish a book quoting documents from the dnso.org 
> without asking authors for their approval. 
> The custodianship of the dnso.org website is the responsibility 
> towards each and every author. 
> I am very happy to see that ICANN as the legal agent, 
> acting on behalf of the DNSO, will protect all the IP rights 
> attached to the dnso.org website, and contribute
> to its long term.
> With my experience on space programs I must say that 
> the preservation of data on the long term is a difficult 
> task, sometimes quite expensive (the disks change, the formats 
> change, the operating systems change, the staff gets retired ... 
> it is all but simple to read ten years old data).
> 
> Again, I do not claim any special rights to the dnso.org,
> I was the one who tried to keep the website organized.
> My motivations today is responsibility and respect of IP 
> rights of those who wrote texts put on the dnso.org website.
> 
> I understand we all agree on this.
> 
> Kind regards,
> Elisabeth
>

smime.p7s