Subject: draft-ietf-eppext-keyrelay unreasonably stuck on IPR?

From: Job Snijders <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2016 15:47:42 +0100

Dear IETF,

Since the EPPEXT Working Group has been concluded and evolved into
regext, I'm reaching out to the bigger group about a document that
somehow is stuck.

The keyrelay specification describes how one can change the DNS operator
of a domain while keeping the DNSSEC chain of trust intact. Obviously
this beats the current "not-the-best" practise of going insecure,
transferring and then securing the domain again.

Background info on secure domain transfers:

    http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/blog/2013/09/how-to-securely-transfer-a-dnssec-signed-domain-between-dns-operators-sidns-epp-keyrelay/
    https://www.sidnlabs.nl/downloads/wp_2013_EPP-keyrelay_v1.en.pdf

Draft-ietf-eppext-keyrelay can't progress due to a DISCUSS from Stephen
Farrell. Farrel raised because the IPR situation is not succinctly
clear: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-eppext-keyrelay/ballot/

>From the IPR details here listed at
https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/2393/ I quote:

    """Licensing Declaration to be Provided Later (implies a willingness
    to commit to the provisions of a), b), or c) above to all
    implementers; otherwise, the next option 'Unwilling to Commit to the
    Provisions of a), b), or c) Above'. - must be selected)"""

The IPR statement was submitted on July 21, 2014.  I am not sure what
the capitalisation of the words "Provided Later" signifies - but surely
the purpose of this process is not to stall and leave a document in
limbo forever. I appreciate that IPR related work can take time, but
this long? A convenient counter is provided here: https://rikribbers.nl/keyrelay/

I've asked the keyrelay authors what attempts have been undertaken to
resolve the situation, and according to them attempts to communicate
with the (presumably a legal department) contact persons listed at
https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/2393/ have gone unanswered, and the
IETF participant whose belief triggered the disclosure has not been able
to progress the issue either. A promise such as "soon" is appreciated,
but not sufficient: https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/regext/SbwMA57ebzMjKwaphz6AZzliMM0

For those that wonder what the impact of stonewalling this document is:
the SIDN (the .nl registry) has put their current deployment on hold.
The SIDN had implemented keyrelay in their Shared Registry System to
verify if a domain transfer can be done while keeping the DNSSEC chain
of trust intact. However registrars are waiting for keyrelay to be
published as a real standard, in absence of that:
secure->insecure->transfer->secure.

Should you wonder why the Dutch are growing impatient... The Dutch
registry is globally a leader in terms of DNSSEC deployment. With over
2.5 million DNSSEC secured domain registrations, the ability to securely
transfer is critical! There are ~ 22,000 .nl-domainname transfers per
month.

Adoption of secure transfers should have been in place before DNSSEC
validating resolvers became the norm.

Aside from the 'keyrelay'-specific concerns I described above, I worry
that IPR disclosures can be used as an obstructionist attack vector to
indefinitely stall a document's publication. File a patent, file a
disclosure, never provide licensing information! That doesn't seem right.

Kind regards,

Job

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2016 10:40:59 -0800

Hi Job,
>regext, I'm reaching out to the bigger group about a document that

Did the authors or Working Group address the second part of the DISCUSS?

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

P.S. There may have been a communication breakdown as the draft 
started in EPPEXT which no longer exists.  There was also some 
personnel changes along the way.

---

From: Rik Ribbers <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2016 19:53:01 +0000

Yes, this was addressed during the IESG review last december and resulted in the latest version. The only thing blocking is the IPR-disclosure

Gr,
Rik

On 8 Nov 2016, at 19:40, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]<mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2016 19:57:57 +0000

> Did the authors or Working Group address the second part of the DISCUSS?

I believe they did. It's so long ago though I forget;-)

As to the meat of this, my discuss says "the DISCUSS is to ask
did I miss stuff and if not how can WG participants have
rationally considered an IPR declaration if the licensing
information will only arrive "later" after the document is
approved to become an RFC?"

As Job says, the reaction from the folks who declared IPR was
that they needed a bit of time to check internally. And it
seems that they gave that response again again some months
later.

I also chatted with Job about this a while back and indicated
that I'd be willing to clear (though not happy to clear) if the
response from the WG (via the chairs or AD) were something like
"the WG has consensus to live with the crap situation, seems
like it's not improving and we don't have anyone saying it out
be blocking."  I don't think I ever did hear that back from anyone
though. Had I, I would have cleared the discuss. (And apologies
if I missed a statement to that effect.)

S.

> 
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy
> 
> P.S. There may have been a communication breakdown as the draft started
> in EPPEXT which no longer exists.  There was also some personnel changes
> along the way.
>