Subject: Re: Topic drift Re: An Internet Draft as reference material

From: [email-masked] (Hal Murray)
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 14:34:37 -0700 (PDT)

> PS - i let the draft in question expire because i wanted to.
> that's the nice thing about expiry - the author retains a tiny
> modicum of control over something.  the notion that people
> other than the author can usurp control and publish it anyway
> is repugnant and is plagarism, pure and simple, no matter
> whether the author gets listed or not.  you didn't have permission,
> it's plagarism, if not theft.

That doesn't make sense to me.  (But I admit I'm far from a wizard
on IETF procedures and rules.)

Are you trying to tell me that somebody can publish a draft, and then
"let it expire" just because they don't like the changes that other
people suggest?  Does the author get veto power over improvements
that a working group agrees to?

I'll happily grant the author some degree of control.  The IETF
can't force any author to do any work they don't want to do.  But
if the author and a WG don't agree, it seems reasonable to me that
the WG should be allowed to keep refining the original ideas.  That
might require finding somebody else to do the editing.  (I assume
the WG would be polite enough to give the early authors credit or
leave their names off the new/refined/plagarized document as they
prefer.)

-- 
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employers.  I hate spam.

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From: Bill Manning <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 16:35:52 -0700 (PDT)

% > is repugnant and is plagarism, pure and simple, no matter
% > whether the author gets listed or not.  you didn't have permission,
% > it's plagarism, if not theft.
% 
% That doesn't make sense to me.  (But I admit I'm far from a wizard
% on IETF procedures and rules.)
% 
% Are you trying to tell me that somebody can publish a draft, and then
% "let it expire" just because they don't like the changes that other
% people suggest?  Does the author get veto power over improvements
% that a working group agrees to?

From my perspective, the answer to your first question is "yes".
And what WG?  Internet Drafts were and are generated by Individuals w/o
benefit of an associated WG. 

-- 
--bill

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 20:38:57 -0400

> that a working group agrees to?

there are two separate issues here:  

it seems to me that an author really does have the right to
just let a draft expire if he/she cannot get folks to agree
that his/her solution (and expression of that solution)
to whatever problem is the right way to go.  we certainly 
cannot force the author to modify the document to suit someone
else's tastes (especially when they're wrong!).  nor can
we expect the author to accept publication of the document
with an implict "rejected" stamp.  

on the other hand, in my mind publication of an internet-draft
is implicitly granting the right to others in the community to
use and tweak those ideas in other proposals (with the possible
exception of I-Ds with the restricted boilerplate option),
and perhaps even to make derivative works from the original draft.
the original author's wishes should be respected regarding the
granting of credit - whether he/she wants co-authorship, an 
explicit acknowledgement, or to disclaim it entirely.

Keith

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From: Eric Brunner-Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 20:52:53 -0400

> benefit of an associated WG. 

Precisely my point to Grenville.

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From: Grenville Armitage <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 18:29:15 -0700

> Precisely my point to Grenville.

Our discussion had nothing to do with who the question of who
*generates* I-Ds, but what makes them valid on an ongoing basis.

gja