Subject: RE: [Int-area] Access to 802.16 Archives

From: "Romascanu, Dan \(Dan\)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Oct 2005 19:08:59 +0200

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] 
> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Bernard Aboba
> 
> With respect who can have access, the IETF has made it clear to IEEE
> 802 that since the IETF has no concept of membership, that 
> granting archive access to any WG implies granting access to 
> "anyone who wants it." 
> 

Hmmm... Actually the text in
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-iab-ieee-802-rel-01.txt
mentions something about 'members of the IETF WG'. 

  The IETF WG chair will
   be provided with access to the username/password for the IEEE 802 WG
   archives, and is permitted to share that information with members of
   the IETF WG.  Since it is possible to participate in IETF without
   attending meetings, or even joining a mailing list, IETF WG chairs
   will provide the information with anyone who requests it.  However,
   since IEEE 802 work-in-progress is copyrighted, incorporating
   material into IETF documents or posting the username/password on
   mailing lists or websites is not permitted.

I would say that the common practice, at least in my experience is not
to 'provide the information with anyone who requests it' but rather to
provide it only to recognized participants in the WG activity, who have
a demonstrated need to access the IEEE documents, with the purpose of
using it for related IETF work or reviews of IEEE documents, and with
proper instructions concerning the need to keep this information
confidential. 

Maybe future versions of
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-iab-ieee-802-rel-01.txt should
make amend the current text. 

Regards,

Dan

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---

From: Bernard Aboba <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Oct 2005 11:03:33 -0700 (PDT)

> make amend the current text. 

Since the IETF has no notion of membership, either within WGs or the IETF 
at large, attempts to determine the "legitimacy" of WG members is resting 
on thin ice.  The IETF/IEEE 802 relationship document deliberately make it 
clear that access is to be provided to anyone in order to establish this 
as a fundamental principle of the IETF/IEEE 802 relationship.  I think 
that principle is worth fighting for. 

How is a WG chair to know whether someone is a "legitimate pariticipant" 
or not?  The IETF does not require meeting attendance.  An individual can 
submit comments on an IETF document without even being a member of the WG 
or IETF mailing lists (I do this all the time).  

I'd note that some of the same issues have come up in IEEE 802. 
The Chair of IEEE 802.1 (Tony Jeffree) has stated that since IEEE 802 WGs 
are required to accept ballot comments from anyone regardless of voting 
status or IEEE membership, he considers anyone with an interest in IEEE 
802.1 documents to be eligible for document access.

Overall, there's an important principle at stake here.  The IETF 
requires that documents under discussion be publicly available.  To 
enable open review of IEEE 802 work in progress, we've made it clear to 
IEEE 802 that IETF WG chairs will provide archive access to anyone who asks.  
We've written this into the IETF/IEEE 802 relationship 
document , and asked for IEEE 802 ExComm review, in order to make sure 
that this important IETF principle is accepted by IEEE 802.