Subject: RE: Acknowledgements section in a RFC (Was: Last Call: 'Matching of Language Tags' to BCP (draft-ietf-ltru-matching)

From: "Gray, Eric" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 12:33:15 -0400

Spencer,

	This opens up yet another can of worms.  Suppose that
everybody who makes a comment on a draft (substantive, or
otherwise) has to be listed and every one listed is bound by
BCPs relating to IPR, copyright, etc. in RFC content.

	What happens if someone - perhaps having suggested that
a word was misspelled - would prefer not to be bound by the
BCPs (or perhaps is not permitted to be so bound)?  Can they
request to be left out?  If they do, can an editor leave them
out?

	It occasionally happens now that a draft departs from 
the original direction that some of the contributors wanted 
it to go, and - slightly less often - those that disagree 
with the outcome ask to be de-listed.  There are good and
reasonable reasons to allow this - especially as there may
be very strong reactions from a particular employer that is
seen as "advocating" something they do not intend to do.

	In such cases, these early contributors provided much
of the content - even if the over-all outcome is not in line
with their intentions.  So, again, would we be able to omit
their names?

--
Eric

--> -----Original Message-----
--> From: Spencer Dawkins [mailto:[email-masked]] 
--> Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 7:48 AM
--> To: [email-masked]
--> Subject: Re: Acknowledgements section in a RFC (Was: Last 
--> Call: 'Matching of Language Tags' to BCP (draft-ietf-ltru-matching)
--> 
--> Perhaps I lead a sheltered life, but on two of these points...
--> 
--> >> > - Appendix A - some names seem to be missing. I could 
--> quote a small
--> >> > score of them?
--> >>
--> >>I do not know if there are written rules about the 
--> "Acknowledgements"
--> >>or "Credits" section in a RFC. It seems quite variable between the
--> >>RFCs. I am mentioned in draft-ietf-ltru-matching-14 for 
--> what I regard
--> >>as a very small contribution and not in RFC 4408 where I 
--> feel that my
--> >>contribution is more substantive.
--> >
--> > Dear Stephane,
--> > This may seem trivial, but IMHO quoting every contributor 
--> is important for 
--> > several key reasons.
--> >
--> > - the IETF is made of paid and free volunteers. The 
--> reward of the free 
--> > participants is their exposure. If we want top quality 
--> participants we 
--> > must acknowledge their contributions.
--> 
--> This is a real concern (I am a working group draft editor 
--> for a draft where 
--> probably 30 percent of the e-mail I've received on the 
--> draft has been about 
--> acknowledgements). I thought it was a more serious concern 
--> for academics and 
--> consultants, but am now seeing the same concerns from 
--> corporate standards 
--> types and development engineers in other working groups. I 
--> have expressed 
--> this as a concern in private e-mail, but don't know what 
--> the answer is.
--> 
--> > - the IPR is to all the co-authors. Every person having 
--> contributed a 
--> > word, a concept, a change, positively or negatively is a 
--> co-author. This 
--> > also has some importance to show the document is not the 
--> work of an 
--> > affinity group (as discussed in RFC 3774) but of a true WG.
--> 
--> In my limited SDO experience, beyond IETF I am most familar 
--> with IEEE 802.1 
--> practice, which is to list "participants" (at least, this 
--> is what appears in 
--> the most recent IEEE 802.1 standard appearing on "Getieee802" at 
--> http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/download/802.1AB-2005.p
--> df), where the 
--> list is "membership at the time of approval", and "balloted 
--> at various 
--> times".
--> 
--> Since we have no clue who the "membership" of an IETF 
--> working group is, I 
--> don't know how to do the equivalent thing here.
--> 
--> Spencer 
--> 
--> 
--> 
--> _______________________________________________
--> Ietf mailing list
--> [email-masked]
--> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
--> 

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---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 13:52:36 -0400

> BCPs relating to IPR, copyright, etc. in RFC content.

They are so bound... read the Note Well.  Whether they should be
so listed is a separate issue.

> request to be left out?  If they do, can an editor leave them

Too bad.  If they participate in the IETF at the level of either
attending meetings or saying anything, they are stuck.   While
there are guidelines now (see Bob Braden's note) and guidelines
can always be further tuned, I think we need to give some
discretion to document editors about who should be listed --at
least until and unless we have a clear definition of, e.g., WG
membership.

> with their intentions.  So, again, would we be able to omit

I have often dealt with that issue in acknowledgements by being
very explicit that all contributors may not agree with the
conclusions reached as a consequence of their suggestions (or
with their suggestions included).   An even more extreme case
exists than the ones that you mention: someone raises an issue
and preference and the document is ultimately clarified to
reflect exactly the opposite preference.  In some of these
cases, the document would not have addressed the topic at all
had the issue not been raised.  The person who raised the issue
may still have made a contribution significant enough to justify
acknowledgement but may have always been in violent disagreement
with the conclusion reached by the IETF process about how to
deal with it.

The underlying problem here is not unique to the IETF.  And
people who don't want to contribute or be bound by the rules
should avoid participation -- there isn't any "whoops, I don't
like the results so the rules should retroactively not apply to
me and the fact that I participated at all should be erased"
option.  Having such an option with regard to rule-conforming
would result in chaos.  Again, the Note Well is very clear about
this (and there is a parallel discussion going in circles,
perhaps parallel ones, in the IPR WG).

    john

---

From: "David Harrington" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 14:47:35 -0400

Hi,

In transferring responsibility for the Bridge MIBs to IEEE 802, we
learned that the IETF has certain copyrights to documents that have
been submitted to the IETF for IETF purposes. All other rights remain
with the authors, and the IEEE had to contact the authors to get
permission to do non-IETF things with the documents. The IETF has no
authority to transfer the authors' rights to other
organizations/persons for non-IETF purposes.

So it is not important for IETF purposes for the IETF to define
requirements about listing authors and contributors to IETF documents.

It may be important to the authors and contributors and to others who
want to ask those authors for permissions to do non-IETF things, or if
the IETF decides it needs the rights to transfer rights to others for
non-IETF purposes.

David Harrington
[email-masked] 
[email-masked]
[email-masked]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John C Klensin [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 1:53 PM
> To: Gray, Eric; Spencer Dawkins
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: RE: Acknowledgements section in a RFC (Was: Last 
> Call: 'Matching of Language Tags' to BCP (draft-ietf-ltru-matching)
> 
> 
>