OsisCharter

The following charter was approved by the OSIS Working Group in an in-person meeting at the Identity Open Space held Monday 11 September 2006 at Digital ID World 2006.

Name: Open Source Identity System (OSIS) Working Group

Identity Commons domain: http://osis.idcommons.net/wiki/Main_Page

Purpose
The purpose of this working group is to enable open source identity software projects to work independently, but in alignment, so overlap of work is avoided and the parts developed by different projects will fit.

Principles
The OSIS working group will function according to the Identity Commons Principles (see Purpose And Principles). In addition, this group:


 * Is commited to the goal of internet-scale identity interoperability across projects, protocols, companies and platforms; and
 * Is commited to the goal of enabling a pluralistic technology and business ecosystem for identity product and service components that compete on the merits rather than based on any one entity's control over one or more components.
 * Shall determine architecture specifications by consensus of the OSIS Steering Committee.

Requirements of Participation and How to Join
This working group is open to representatives of any open source identity software project and to any other interested persons who:


 * Publicly commit to the goal of internet-scale identity interoperability across projects, protocols, companies and platforms, and
 * Publicly commit to the goal of enabling a pluralistic technology and business ecosystem for identity product and service components that compete on the merits rather than based on any one entity's control over one or more components.

An open source digital identity software project or interested person joins this working group by publicly declaring their membership on this charter page and affirming that they adhere to the Purpose and Principles of this working group and that they make the two commitments specified above.

To join in the discussions of this working group, members use the OSIS wiki, sign up for one or more of the OSIS mailing lists, or attend in-person meetings of this working group.

Licenses and/or Restrictions on Usage of Work Product
Each OSIS member project chooses the open source license for the software it develops. Should OSIS as a whole produce any software, the Steering Committee shall determine the license.

Conversation on an OSIS mailing list is private to that list; permission to use text from a message must be granted by the author of that message. Conversations on teleconferences are private to that conference; permission to use what a participant said must be granted by that participant.

The contents of the OSIS wiki are licensed under the Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution license.

Current Deliverables and Milestones

 * The first executable delivered will be an open-source identity selector developed as a joint effort of multiple projects. This identity selector is intended to be at least as functional as, and fully compatible with Microsoft's CardSpace (formerly known as InfoCard) identity selector, to be shipped with Windows Vista.


 * The upcoming milestone is revision, 0.1.0.7, of the OSIS Abstract Architecture  October 2006


 * Each OSIS member project determines its own deliverables and milestones.

Current Meeting Schedule
Teleconferences are held every other Monday at 12 M Pacific Time and are announced on the OSIS mailing lists.

Current Membership
The current working group members include the members of the Steering Committee and other persons.

Steering Committee

 * Paul Trevithick (http://higgins-project.org)
 * Dale Olds (Bandit Project, Novell)
 * Michael Graves or David Recordon (Apache Heraldry Project, Verisign)
 * Pete Rowley (Red Hat)
 * Johannes Ernst (OSIS Project, NetMesh)
 * Anthony Nadalin (IBM)
 * Drummond Reed (OpenXRI Project, OASIS XRI & XDI TCs, Cordance)
 * RL 'Bob' Morgan (Shibboleth)
 * Dick Hardt (Sxip)
 * Gerald Beuchelt (Sun)
 * Patrick Harding (Ping)
 * Uppili Srinivasan (Oracle)
 * Mike Jones (Microsoft) -- observer

Current Stewards Council Representative

 * Representative: Dale Olds (Bandit Project, Novell)
 * Alternate: Johannes Ernst (OSIS working group, NetMesh)

Current Links

 * http://osis.idcommons.net/wiki/Main_Page - OSIS wiki

Other Information
Following is additonal information provided by the members regarding the structure and governance of this working group.

Operation
The OSIS working group shall:


 * Establish architectural agreement on the key interfaces between the various open source identity software and service components under development;
 * Synchronize the open source identity software projects in a manner that avoids unnecessary duplication of efforts and reduces the potential of forking;
 * Assist in the assembly and quality assurance of distributions and products that use components from multiple projects;
 * Track and resolve cross-project issues as they arise; and
 * Operate an electronic infrastructure (mailing lists, wikis, issue tracking systems, &c.) to support this effort.

Steering Commmittee
There shall be a Steering Committee. That Committee shall consist of representatives of significant stakeholders, both open-source projects and vendors. The members of the Committee shall be elected and shall serve as prescribed in procedures adopted by a two thirds majority of all the members of the Steering Committee.

A proposed change to those procedures shall be posted on the the OSIS wiki and on each OSIS mailing list. A change to those procedures shall be adopted only at the third regularly scheduled and announced meeting of the Steering Committee following the date of such posting, by a two thirds majority of all the members of the Steering Committee.

Obsolete
The Steering Committee shall provide for additional committees, including:


 * An architecture committee, consisting of the project leads of open source identity projects, one member per project.
 * A licensing and distribution committee, consisting of representatives of vendors and distributors of OSIS software.

Election of Stewards Council Representative
The Identity Commons Stewards Council Representative of this working group shall be elected by and serve at the pleasure of a majority of all the members of the Steering Committee.

The Steering Committee may from time to time elect one or more alternate representatives who shall represent this working group when the Stewards Council Representative is unable to attend a meeting of or to vote on a matter before the Stewards Council.

Amendments
This Charter may be amended by consensus of the Steering Committee.

Each proposed amendment to this Charter shall be posted on the the OSIS wiki and on each OSIS mailing list. An amendment to this Charter shall be adopted only at the third regularly scheduled and announced meeting of the Steering Committee following the date of such posting, by consensus of the Steering Committee.

Quarterly Reports

 * 2007 Q4 Report OSIS
 * 2008 Q1 Report OSIS
 * 2008 Q2 Report OSIS
 * 2008 Q3 Report OSIS