Introduction

This is a request that the OSI Board consider the idea of a small OSI working group for a likely 2-year period, to advance the free/libre/open concepts and understanding amongst the stakeholders of the presently-emerging global digital payment systems (technical; business; legal; governance).

The WG Chair would:

1. serve as OSI's eyes and ears to provide structured liaison with the forthcoming W3C Web Payments Steering Group [1].;
2. coordinate a consultative community to advance specific OSI interests and profile in this domain (explained below);
3. coordinate and be contributing editor for the drafting of occasional formal OSI submissions to W3C, UNCITRAL, and other top-level bodies; and,
4. travel to two events per year (one within N.America), on a minimalist budget. (I would add OSI FLOW Syllabus side activities to such trips.)

Note: This proposal is not to represent OSI. It is to structure and maintain a channel for the OSI Board and membership to be engaged in this W3C project. All submissions would be cleared first with the proposed WG, then by the OSI Board.

For overall context please the message included below from Stephane Boyera, co-manager of the web payments initiative on W3C staff.

Below is a detailed background. If the suggestion seems suitable for formal consideration, it will be restructure into a WG proposal. The intent of this current message is to request some initial informal reaction and feedback from the Board.

Backrgound

Linkage to OSI's Mandate: Increasing Awareness, Participation and Contributions to the OSI.

The link between the web payment topic and the goals of the OSI are expressed in a keynote address I delivered in 2009 at the Ben Graham Centre's 2nd Annual Symposium on Value Investing [2], in which I proposed:

People of a free and democratic society can rightly demand openness, transparency and accountability for the computer programs used in monetary system operations, analysis and reporting. This is expressed in the International Monetary Fund's Code of Good Practices on Transparency in Monetary and Financial Policies (IMF 2000), specifically that "the coverage of transparency practices for financial policies in the Code includes those for the operation of systemically important components of the nation's payment system". It
is a democratic principle of monetary systems design that the computer programs implementing them, engage free/libre/open methods and licensing."

In my current interventions through participation in the current high-profile developments relating to web payments standardization,
I've been making the case that permissively licensed free/libre/open
source software reference implementations of the functional components
of UNCITRAL model laws, conformant with W3C and IETF specifications,
would serve the public interest in open markets, and reduce the cost
and time required for tangible implementation and compliance. At the
same time it would also improve inter-jurisdictional
inter-operability, systems auditability and security.

In the past several months I have been serving an informal pro bono
liaison role between the W3C and the UNCITRAL Working Group IV on
Electronic Commerce [8][9]. On that front, the Chair of the UNCITRAL
WG-IV recently suggested I explore whether W3C or OSI might request
Official Observer Status at their meetings each 6 months, alternating
between NYC and Vienna  again on a case-by-case approval basis. It
seems to me to that an OSI Observer role with UNCITRAL WG-IV can be
more far-reaching than having W3C in that role, because
free/libre/open principles are relevant throughout the entire IT stack
through which payments systems operate, compared with the W3C mandate
comprising only the web layer in the governance stack (
http://www.w3.org/2005/05/image001.jpg ) This, OSI is well positioned
to assist dirverse organizations in this realm, which is a very good
way to increase awareness, participation and contributions to the OSI.

For this reason it seems to me that a WG on this topic could assist
the Board, in alignment and synergy with OSI's new re-branding effort.
I think it would be possible to run a successful supplier-neutral OSI
fund-raising campaign (both corporate and individual) directed towards
this topic. Several of the most significant new entrants to the
payments domain are licensed and coordinated free/libre/open source
(eg the Ripple clearing house system, and various block-chain systems
involving Bitcoin and its derivative systems).

2. Organizational Context

As you know, parallel to my collaboration in recent months with OSI to
establish and develop the FLOW Syllabus, I am also an active
participant in the W3C's work towards an open specification on web
payments. It is one of the venues where I have been committing my
efforts to advance and sustain free/libre/open source principles in
core monetary and payments systems.

In his message below, W3C's Stephane Boyera explains that membership
in the new Web Payments Steering Group generally requires that the
individual be an employee or contractor to a W3C member organization.
But there is also provision for invited experts. [7] "To be able to
participate in a Working Group as an Invited Expert, an individual
MUST do all of the following: (a) identify the organization, if any,
the individual represents as a participant in this group; ... (e)
provide a statement of who will provide the necessary financial
support for the individual's participation (e.g., for travel,
telephone calls, and conferences), and (f) if the individual's
employer (including a self-employed individual) or the organization
the individual represents is not a W3C Member, indicate whether that
organization intends to join W3C. If the organization does not intend
to join W3C, indicate reasons the individual is aware of for this
choice.

Through The Opman Company my professional time would be covered for
participation, but with reference to W3C's list in the previous
paragraph, I would like to propose: (a) that I serve a communcation
liaison role for the OSI in this W3C process; (e) that the OSI agree
in principle to cover my basic travel expenses to two face-to-face
meetings per year, on a case-by-case advance approval basis; and if
this would be approved, then as per (f) that you provide me a line or
two to summarize why OSI is not a member of the W3C.

As you know, free/libre/open source licensing and methods are
factoring more and more prominently into major operations of finance
and banking. It is possible that, later on if the Board wished, an OSI
WG might eventually assist towards a more an inter-organizational MOU
along the lines of:

• Internet Engineering Task Force and International Telecommunication
  Union - Telecommunication Standardization Sector Collaboration
  Guidelines
  http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6756
• The IEEE 802/IETF Relationship draft-iab-rfc4441rev-08
  http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-iab-rfc4441rev-08

3. Additional Professional Background

Further into the depths of this topic, my doctoral dissertation
underway at U Québec ("Free/Libre/Open World Market Payment
Arrangements and their Emergent Effects") includes the design and
implementation of payment methods in the venue of extensions to an
advanced free/libre/open source macro-economic model [3]. This
includes the design and implementation of several major monetary
benchmarks running free/libre/open algorithms [4][5][6], all based on
free/libre/open data.

Upon my completion of a decade advancing the official engagement of
free/libre/open methods in the Canadian Government, the following
testimonial was posted on my LinkedIn page: “Joseph is truly one of
the more creative and innovative guys I have ever met. His work in
creating the Intellectual Resources Canada franchise model
demonstrated a clever balance between understanding and adhering to
government policy and regulatory constraints while breaking new ground
in establishing better ways of achieving outcomes in the IT services
space. His variety of other initiatives outside of government further
support that he's a 'think outside the box' kind of guy. ... Josephs
expert level knowledge in economics, added to the above experience,
makes him a truly unique individual and I'm sure we'll be reading
about his successful exploits in the paper for years to come.”
 Jack Pagotto, Head/Multi-Agency Crisis Management, Emergency
Management Systems & Interoperability, Defense R&D Canada
http://www.drdc-rddc.gc.ca/en/science-tech/safety-security.page
<Jack.Pagotto@drdc-rddc.gc.ca> 1-613-219-5214

Joseph Potvin
Chair, OSI Management Education Working Group
Operations Manager, The Opman Company
jpotvin@opman.ca Mobile: 819-593-5983

[1] http://www.w3.org/2013/10/payments/
[2] http://www.bengrahaminvesting.ca/Outreach/2009_Symposium.htm
[3] http://www.globalclimateforum.org/index.php?id=lagom
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2479989.2480113
[4] Example: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/commodities-as-a-global-currency/article1346127/
[5] Example: http://www.themoneytrap.com/2012/11/a-five-point-reform-plan/
[6] Example: Haas et.al. (Forthcoming) Currencies, Commodities, and
Keynes. Attached to this email. See pgs 37-38.
[7] http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/groups.html#inv-expert-info
[8] http://www.uncitral.org/uncitral/en/uncitral_texts/electronic_commerce.html
[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Commission_on_International_Trade_Law

 Forwarded message  From: Stephane Boyera
<boyera@w3.org> Date: Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 4:45 AM Subject: W3C Web
Payments Activity Update To:
"team-webpayments-workshop-announcement@w3.org"
<team-webpayments-workshop-announcement@w3.org>,
"public-webpaymentsigcharter@w3.org"
<public-webpaymentsigcharter@w3.org>

 Dear All,

I would like to give you a complete update on W3C Web Payments activity.

The last months since the workshop have been intensive and I want to
thank again all those who participated in the discussions and
contributed to the development of the W3C Web Payments Steering Group
charter (aka Web Payments IG).

I believe that the charter at [1] has stabilized and covers most of
the points that are in the scope of this activities. Apart from
driving the development of the charter, my W3C colleagues and I have
conducted a series of one-to-one discussions with various
organizations, and we believe that we have now the critical mass to
launch the activity.

We will now start the formal W3C process which consists of three
steps: * After W3C management approval, the charter will be send to
W3C members representatives for review and comment * Based on this
review, the W3C director will decide (or not) to launch the new group

• When the group is launched, W3C members appoints some of their staff
  to the group and the work begin

The commitments for participants in the group are light: the group
works by email, usually meets once a week for one hour teleconference,
and then is likely to meet face-to-face perhaps three times a year.
While not mandatory, participation in these face-to-face meetings,
particularly in the first one, is important. In most cases, we will be
able to organize remote participation solutions through
teleconferencing.

If the group is launched as scheduled, it is very likely that the
first face-to-face will take place during the annual W3C Technical
Plenary. This year it is taking place in Santa-Clara, California, 27
to 31 October. The Web Payments group is scheduled 27 and 28. See
details at http://www.w3.org/2014/11/TPAC/  (Note that the group is
not listed yet because it is not existing.)

In terms of required actions, here is what you have to do:

• If your organization is a W3C member (see the list at
  http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List ):

If you are the official W3C representative, then you just have to wait
and receive son a call for review. You will have then to send your
review and that's it. If you are not the official W3C representative
of your company, you should get in touch with your representative
(don't hesitate to ask me his/her details) and coordinate the review
together.

• If your organization is not a W3C member:

Participation in the group requires W3C membership. If you are
interested to learn more on the benefit and process for becoming a
member, please get in touch with me. In some exceptional cases, we may
appoint individuals as invited experts (see
http://www.w3.org/2004/08/invexp). I'm managing these requests on a
case-by-case.

Please let me know if the process and next steps are clear or if you
have any questions. Feel free to comment publicly or contact me
privately. Finally, feel free to share this email with anybody that
may be interested in this work.

[1]http://www.w3.org/2014/04/payments/webpayments_charter.html

Best Regards Stephane  Stephane Boyera    stephane@w3.org W3C
+33 (0) 6 73 84 87 27 BP 93 F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France