Open Design Alliance (ODA) today announced that it has modified the structure of its membership agreements. This modification gives ODA members much clearer guidelines. It will also reduce administrative costs for the ODA, allowing more expenditure on the development of Teigha® , the ODA software development platform.
The new structure introduces three sets of documents: Membership Agreement, ODA Membership Rules and Policies and Trademark Guidelines. These documents are available on the ODA website so that members and the public have easy access to their information. If the ODA chooses to modify any of these documents then ODA members have an opportunity to opt out.
“The modification of the membership agreement structure will give ODA members better guidance on distributing their Teigha based applications” said Arnold van der Weide, President of ODA. “It also gives Founding Members long term security as they continue development of their applications based on Teigha.”
The current membership agreements were introduced in 2003 at the time the ODA changed its name from OpenDWG Alliance to Open Design Alliance. One major issue was that all Rules and Guidelines were embedded in the agreements, making them long and complex. The ODA had to sign new agreements with more than 1200 ODA members every time a modification was made. In addition, signed agreements are stored in the Legal Department, so members had no direct access to the Rules and Guidelines.