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

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 13:46:10 -0500

Perhaps a way out of this conundrum is to periodically publish
historical RFCs that are "survey papers" on a particular topic and
would include some ideas from old ID's.  These RFCs would
describe the problem, some of the proposed solutions, and a
(technical) description of why or  why not each solution was
adopted, as well as the current thinking on the problem.

I've often scratched my head while reading a spec and
wondered "Why the heck did they do it *that* way?", later
to find out there was a reason (and often, its a good one).

Of course this doesn't solve the problem of properly
acknowledging or referencing the original work, but in this
case, a ref to an ID would seem suitable.  Failing that one
can always do an inline acknowledgment: "An ID published
in June 1997 by J. Smith introduced the concept of..."

While it seems clear that an author may want to maintain
copyright and "ownership" of the original text, I don't see how
they could claim ownership to the idea if they submit it to
a standards organization.  And if they don't like how the
IETF tweaks their idea, well its not hard to publish it in its
pure form in other fora...

-Mike

"Mike O'Dell" <[email-masked]> on 09/30/2000 08:14:25 AM

Sent by:  "Mike O'Dell" <[email-masked]>

To:   "Eliot Lear" <[email-masked]>
cc:   "John C Klensin" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], [email-masked] (Mike
      Borella/MW/US/3Com)
Subject:  Re: Topic drift Re: An Internet Draft as reference material

one point you are ignoring when it comes to publishing just
anything as an RFC:  once it has that designation "RFC",
THE IDEA IS SANCTIFIED, no matter what disclaimers you
plaster all over it.  (Even a biohazard symbol with a
legend reading "DANGER: LIVE EBOLA" wouldn't help. Ooops -
can't do the symbol in ASCII - sorry - bad idea.)

i know it isn't supposed to be this way, but

     THIS IS REALITY - GET OVER IT.

the IETF has been in denial about this problem
for many years. I personally submitted an alternative
which was roundly defeated as it had the temerity to
try and bring intent in line with current reality.

instead, people decided to continue insisting that
reality was as they desired, not as it is.

until this get fixed, worrying about any one
incident is worse than pointless - it continues
the denial.

have a nice day.

     -mo

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.

---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 14:10:24 -0600 (MDT)

> From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>

> ...
> This seems very foreign to the concept of free scholarly exchange and
> the notion of copyright. ...

Yes, at least some of those who are objecting to the existence of an IETF
I-D repository have not taken to heart the notions that they expect to be
applied to ideas expressed in C.  They are demanding more control on
published English than on published program source.  Neither the BSD
copyright nor FSF "copyleft" give as much control to authors as some I-D
authors would like.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

---

From: Mohsen BANAN-Public <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 23:37:31 -0700 (PDT)

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

  >> And what WG?  Internet Drafts were and are generated by Individuals w/o
  >> benefit of an associated WG. 

  Eric> Precisely my point to Grenville.

Furthermore, the author may have nothing to do with IETF.

The author may just want to circulate an idea to the 
Internet technical community for informal review
or the author may want to publish a none IETF RFC.

Seperation of powers, checks and balances, definition of scope of
responsibility and accountability are the concepts that are missing
from the IETF.

In cults, even simple things get mixed up.

RFC and Internet-Draft (not IETF-Draft) publication and archiving
should be responsibilities of the RFC-Editor. Too bad the RFC-Editor
Complex is mostly Imaginary and very little Real.

I agree with some of Mike's observations:

>>>>> On Sat, 30 Sep 2000 09:14:25 -0400, "Mike O'Dell" <[email-masked]> said:

  Mike> ...

  Mike> instead, people decided to continue insisting that
  Mike> reality was as they desired, not as it is.

  Mike> until this get fixed, worrying about any one
  Mike> incident is worse than pointless - it continues
  Mike> the denial.

And to those who want to address protocol patent related issues:

  Is it too wild to suggest that the patent issue can be seperated
  from protocol development and the publication of the 
  proctocol specification?

Something other than IETF which can specialize in promoting and
protecting patent-free protocols could perhaps keep its own repository
of I-Ds and other docs for that particular purpose.

Based on separation of responsibilities we can easily create a highly
dis-centralized and healthy Internet technical community.

In that environemnt, an ill defined entity such as the IETF can then
stick to protocol development (not publication, not patent-freedom,
not commenting on work of others, not ...) and compete with others in
the Internet technical community in the area of patent-free and RFC
published protocol development.

A lesser IETF/IESG/IAB makes a better Internet.

...Mohsen.