Subject: Assent and IETF Membership

From: "Contreras, Jorge" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 03:41:22 -0500

Bruce and others,

I'm not in disagreement with the analysis of employer assent that has filtered through various threads lately.  As I've said before, this approach is a known compromise that IETF has lived with historically in order to permit and encourage "individual" participation in IETF standards activities. It's imperfect, and though I'm not aware that it has ever been challenged legally, I'll be the first to admit that the results of such a challenge could go either way.  

That being said, it would probably be helpful to frame the issue being discussed in a context broader than the 12 vs. 30 month debate.  In fact, the issue probably extends beyond the scope of the IPR policy discussion, too.  What you are alluding to is a fundamental change to IETF's structure, one which conceivably would require signed membership agreements and a formally incorporated entity.  

I'm not objecting to such a proposal or saying it's a bad idea.  I just thought it would be reasonable, now that the issues have been well-articulated by yourself and others, to see whether you might put forward a more concrete instantiation of this proposal for further discussion on this list or, if appropriate, a list that is more broadly focused on overall IETF structure/policy (such as POISSON, if it is still active).  I leave that determination to the IPR WG leaders and the rechartering discussion in SF.

Regards,
Jorge

-----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Perens [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 12:57 AM
To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-ipr-wg-guidelines-02.txt (another
plea for 30 month preference)

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
> baseless speculation.

The Rambus case is not speculation. JEDEC did their homework every bit as
well as IETF is _presently_proposing_. The appeals court said that wasn't
sufficient. Three companies are fighting for their lives as a result.

In the face of this, we're proposing a tacit, unsigned, and probably
often uninformed obligation of our employers to an organization that
isn't a legal entity as a means of protecting our standards from exactly
the same practice that happened in JEDEC.

Doesn't this sound less than prudent to you?

	Thanks

	Bruce
_______________________________________________
Ipr-wg mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg
_______________________________________________
Ipr-wg mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 10:11:02 +0100

--On tirsdag, mars 11, 2003 03:41:22 -0500 "Contreras, Jorge" 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> That being said, it would probably be helpful to frame the issue being
> discussed in a context broader than the 12 vs. 30 month debate.  In fact,
> the issue probably extends beyond the scope of the IPR policy discussion,
> too.  What you are alluding to is a fundamental change to IETF's
> structure, one which conceivably would require signed membership
> agreements and a formally incorporated entity.
>
> I'm not objecting to such a proposal or saying it's a bad idea.  I just
> thought it would be reasonable, now that the issues have been
> well-articulated by yourself and others, to see whether you might put
> forward a more concrete instantiation of this proposal for further
> discussion on this list or, if appropriate, a list that is more broadly
> focused on overall IETF structure/policy (such as POISSON, if it is still
> active).  I leave that determination to the IPR WG leaders and the
> rechartering discussion in SF.

The idea that the problem of patents and "assent by employers of 
participants" is important enough that we should change the structure of 
the IETF because of it is *definitely* within the province of the 
problem-statement working group.

This WG is now formally approved as well as being active for a number of 
months, and its first draft is out; see

http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/problem-charter.html

In their first draft of "what are the problems of the IETF", this issue is 
not mentioned; those who think that it needs to be added had better go to 
that mailing list and make sure it's mentioned.

That WG's meeting is on Friday, March 21 in San Francisco, BTW.

                     Harald

---

From: [email-masked] (Bruce Perens)
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 01:27:39 -0800 (PST)

From: "Contreras, Jorge" <[email-masked]>
> I'm not in disagreement with the analysis of employer assent that has
> filtered through various threads lately.

Thank you. The issue of assent has been on our minds of late, as Specht
v. Netscape seems to have implications for Open Source licensing.

> though I'm not aware that it has ever been challenged legally, I'll be
> the first to admit that the results of such a challenge could go either
> way.

Hm. Wouldn't recent case law regarding assent in software licensing make
you view this issue in a more pessimistic light than previously?

> What you are alluding to is a fundamental change to IETF's structure,
> one which conceivably would require signed membership agreements and a
> formally incorporated entity.

I founded a proper 501(c)3 a few years back, just to support a free software
project. My impression is that IETF is not as legally "solid" as that project,
and yet IETF plays a much more critical role. I find that troubling.

As Harald says, this belongs in the problem-statement working group,
and I can take it up there. It seems inevitable to me that the issue of
IPR would be taken up again once problem-statement and its successor
(I guess we can call that "problem-resolution", for now) complete their
work.

	Thanks

	Bruce