Subject: RE: Voting (again)

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 22:05:55 -0700

> Behalf Of Frank Ellermann

> Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
>  
> > The criteria applied for membership of NOMCON could be applied to 
> > direct voting rights without any difficulty.
> 
> Selling out vs, pseudo-random ?  So far the worst idea I've 
> understood on this list.

I don't think that direct elections would increase corporate influence
in the way you imagine, quite the reverse in fact. 

> > there is nobody who has the authority to represent the IETF 
> > membership.
> 
> Something wrong with Brian, IESG, or IAB ?  If I don't like 
> what they do I can simply say so.

What if your problem is what has not been done for ten years and shows
no more sign of being done today than ten years ago?

> > there has to be a negotiation that takes place between the parties 
> > whose buy in required for deployment.
> 
> One of the more funny MARID experiences were the dozens of 
> one-time-posters all declaring "yes, we will deploy 
> Sender-ID". Surreal.

People were asked if they planned to deploy a spec, they answered.

Given that there were no real technical issues being discussed in the
group at any point in its life I don't know what is wrong about one time
posts in response to a direct question.

There were also a lot of people who only appeared on the other side when
the patent license issue was raised. 

I do think that it was a question that should never been in scope for
the group. If a standards body is going to allow non-royalty free specs
(as the IETF does) I think that the choice of RF or RAND should be
explicitly part of the original group charter. There are some instances
where every possible approach to a problem are encumbered and RF is not
possible. That said, there are few problems where this is the case and
not many people who are willing to support such groups unless they own
the IP.

I believe that the RF/RAND choice should be binary. Individual WGs
should not be allowed to define or negotiate RF terms on their own. They
do not have the necessary bargaining power to negotiate terms, the IESG
does. 

Leaving the negotiation to individual WGs means that we end up with the
lawyers on both sides negotiating through proxies. Negotiating at the
institution level means that the lawyers are forced to become directly
involved. It also means that the corporate lawyers are much more likely
to make concessions. In the MARID group a patent holder was being asked
to surrender rights in one particular case. But even though this  would
effectively set a precedent for that particular rights holder that would
be insisted on in every future case, the rights holder would not be able
to depend on that precedent applying in any other case. In other words
they were being asked to unilaterally disarm without any assurance that
any other party would be required to disarm in similar cases.

Negotiating at the IESG level also means that in the case where there is
an honest disagreement between the lawyers over what the law is it is
possible to bring in outside expertise. 

Negotiating principles rather than specifics means that the conversation
is not driven by comments of the form 'if it was anyone else but X.
these terms would be acceptable'.

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---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 16:04:53 +0200

>possible to bring in outside expertise.

There are two levels I feel. The attribution/acknowledgment of rights and 
real life. This is not because a patent engineer has agreed to patent 
something by the laws of one State over 192 that everyone in the world must 
be blocked. Patents laws foresee in general that Defense has a preemptive 
right. Common network interests should have the same right. But this is 
something which cannot be discussed by IESG/ICANN when IPR holders are 
represented. This is not what an ISOC department can impose.

This is in the range of the WSIS. This is why the IETF not being present in 
the WGIG was en error. In fact an abdication, I am afraid.
jfc

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 00:41:34 +0200

Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
 
> I don't think that direct elections would increase corporate
> influence in the way you imagine, quite the reverse in fact.

One NOMCOM member reported 2 * USD 500 + flight here.  That IS
de facto a "corporate only" policy, plus a few enthusiasts
willing to pay these costs privately.
 
> What if your problem is what has not been done for ten years
> and shows no more sign of being done today than ten years
> ago?

That's tough but not the kind of problem where something in
the IETF could help me.  You're confusing IETF + industry,
standards + patents, protocols + products.  Anything which
is proprietary is irrelevant for a standard.  If you have a
product and/or patent it's fine, just go and try to sell it.

> People were asked if they planned to deploy a spec, they

Probably the same people who would "vote" for a WG chair in
your model.  Then I really prefer the "benevolent dictator"
model, where the WG chair could dismiss these zombies.

> Given that there were no real technical issues being
> discussed in the group at any point in its life

That's not the case, there were on topic technical threads:

One caused major improvements of the ABNF.  Another stated the
incompatibilty of the discussed scheme with other identities
(after numerous attempts to achieve equivalence were ignored).

And finally the incompatible identities resulted in different 
scopes.  Major improvements of worst case scenarios were also
inspired by on topic articles (but solved elsewhere after the
WG was closed against the rules).

The XML-over-DNS part was a waste of time, but you can't say
that it was non-technical.

> There were also a lot of people who only appeared on the
> other side when the patent license issue was raised.

Now that was really off topic, IIRC I've never commented it on
this list.  In fact it wasn't better than the one-time zombies.

> If a standards body is going to allow non-royalty free specs
> (as the IETF does)

Maybe that should be fixed, not the voting.  Or maybe they
should rename IETF to ILTF, the legal task force.  I'd then
know that I'm at the wrong place, because IANAL.  Bye, Frank

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 15:56:36 +0200

...
> This is in the range of the WSIS.

As far as I know, patents are not on the WSIS agenda.

> This is why the IETF not being present 
> in the WGIG was en error. In fact an abdication, I am afraid.

No, abdication would mean that *we* refused an invitation to sit
in WGIG. There was no such invitation and there was, politically,
no possibility of such an invitation. However, ISOC is particpating
as much it can in the WSIS and WGIG process via the "civil society"
channel that is available.

As a matter of fact, Lynn St Amour (ISOC President) and I had lunch
with Markus Kummer of WGIG today. The communication channel is as
open as we can make it.

    Brian