Subject: IETF 54 calendar

From: "Cedric Aoun"<[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 17:13:14 +0200

Hi,
I don't know if people have already asked this question, I apologize if this
was discussed before.
Are we going to finish the WGs sessions on Thursday in Yokohama, same as in
Minneapolis?
Most flights to Europe are around noon, in case meetings are scheduled on
Friday people in Europe will need to schedule their flight on Saturday.
Thanks
Cedric

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 08:28:03 -0700

> Are we going to finish the WGs sessions on Thursday in Yokohama, same as in

my current gossip says no.  i am told of at least one meeting on friday.

and, of course, the massive fireworks for water day are saturday evening.

randy

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 20:04:30 +0200

Cedric,
as Julie said, we are not scheduling things into Friday before the other 
slots are full.

BUT - Yokohama will probably see one meeting that is, by definition, a 
conflict with just about EVERY working group: The meeting that will talk 
about the IETF procedures for intellectual property rights, including 
copyright issues and - most ominously - patent issues.
This was mentioned at the IETF plenary in Minneapolis - a team has been 
working to bring this forward to fruition, but does not have all the work 
that we want to do before asking you to start hammering it out done yet.

This will likely have the properties that:

- Lots of people will be interested
- No matter what we schedule it against, there will be a conflict
- It is likely to be quite a long and heated debate

At the moment, the least damaging solution seems to be to schedule this 
group in the largest room we can find - and in the Friday timeslot.

So this means that people who have IPR issues they want to bring to the 
table had better be prepared to stay Friday; most others can leave if they 
want to.

What do people think?

                    Harald

--On fredag, mai 24, 2002 17:13:14 +0200 Cedric Aoun 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>
> Hi,
> I don't know if people have already asked this question, I apologize if
> this was discussed before.  Are we going to finish the WGs sessions on
> Thursday in Yokohama, same as in Minneapolis?  Most flights to Europe are
> around noon, in case meetings are scheduled on Friday people in Europe
> will need to schedule their flight on Saturday.
>
> Thanks
> Cedric

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 15:32:43 -0500

On 5/26/02 at 8:04 PM +0200, Harald Alvestrand wrote:

>Yokohama will probably see one meeting that is, by definition, a 
>conflict with just about EVERY working group: The meeting that will 
>talk about the IETF procedures for intellectual property rights, 
>including copyright issues and - most ominously - patent issues.
>[...]
>So this means that people who have IPR issues they want to bring to 
>the table had better be prepared to stay Friday; most others can 
>leave if they want to.
>
>What do people think?

It seems to me that exactly the same thing can be said about POISSON 
and it gets along just fine conflicting with other meetings. The 
people who will go to an IPR meeting instead of going to another one 
are those folks who want to contribute to setting IETF IPR policy. I 
think putting it on a day with no other meetings *invites* people who 
may or may not care very much, but are willing to rant on given the 
invitation. Furthermore, decisions of the IETF do not take place at 
face-to-face meetings and it better not be *required* to attend this 
meeting if you want to have input on IETF IPR policy. I have no 
objection to putting the meeting on Friday; I just don't think it 
requires a day by itself.

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick <mailto:[email-masked]>
QUALCOMM Incorporated

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 10:19:48 +1000

I suspect if you haven't already arranged to stay for the fireworks, your
chances of finding accommodation are vanishingly small.

I've certainly just been told all the IETF recommended hotels have no
vacancies for beyond Friday night.

cheers
	-George
--
George Michaelson       |  APNIC
Email: [email-masked]    |  PO Box 2131 Milton QLD 4064
Phone: +61 7 3858 3100  |  Australia
  Fax: +61 7 3858 3199  |  http://www.apnic.net

---

From: Susan Harris <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 10:13:03 -0400 (EDT)

> table had better be prepared to stay Friday; most others can leave if they 

Makes sense to me to schedule it when there are the least conflicts, i.e.,
Friday.

---

From: Marc Blanchet <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 09:20:09 -0400

-- dimanche, mai 26, 2002 20:04:30 +0200 Harald Alvestrand 
<[email-masked]> wrote/a écrit:

> copyright issues and - most ominously - patent issues. This was mentioned
...
> table had better be prepared to stay Friday; most others can leave if
> they want to.
>
> What do people think?

- important topic to be discussed
- to me, this topic could need external advisors available during the 
meeting to make progress and understand the issues. engineers are not good 
IPR attorneys...
- left to the secretariat the choice of scheduling. friday seems a good 
choice.

Marc.

>> will need to schedule their flight on Saturday.

------------------------------------------
Marc Blanchet
Viagénie
tel: +1-418-656-9254x225

------------------------------------------
http://www.freenet6.net: IPv6 connectivity
------------------------------------------
http://www.normos.org: IETF(RFC,draft),
  IANA,W3C,... standards.
------------------------------------------

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 08:30:48 -0700

At 03:32 PM 5/26/2002 -0500, Pete Resnick wrote:
>It seems to me that exactly the same thing can be said about POISSON and 
>it gets along just fine conflicting with other meetings.

excellent observation.

d/

----------
Dave Crocker <mailto:[email-masked]>
TribalWise, Inc. <http://www.tribalwise.com>
tel +1.408.246.8253; fax +1.408.850.1850

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 14:50:10 -0400

--On Sunday, May 26, 2002 3:32 PM -0500 Pete Resnick
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> It seems to me that exactly the same thing can be said about
> POISSON and it gets along just fine conflicting with other
> meetings. 

Actually, Pete, POISSON didn't have a face to face meeting for
years, and the conflicts with other meetings are a large part of
the reason.

> The people who will go to an IPR meeting instead of
> going to another one are those folks who want to contribute to
> setting IETF IPR policy. I think putting it on a day with no
> other meetings *invites* people who may or may not care very
> much, but are willing to rant on given the invitation.

But it also excludes conflicting WG Chairs and editors, along
with most of the IESG and at least part of the IAB.  It is
valuable, I believe, to have those we charge with implementing
and interpreting policies present and participating when they
are shaped. 

> Furthermore, decisions of the IETF do not take place at
> face-to-face meetings and it better not be *required* to
> attend this meeting if you want to have input on IETF IPR
> policy.

But Dave's comment is important here, I think: if we can get the
right people to this meeting, it may have some educational value
for those who want to contribute to IPR policy as amateur
lawyers.  Uneducated decisions (or even positions and drafts)
that are made largely by those people can, at best, waste huge
amounts of time and energy.

     john

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 14:58:06 -0500

On 5/28/02 at 2:50 PM -0400, John C Klensin wrote:

>years, and the conflicts with other meetings are a large part of the 
>reason.

Was this a detriment to the work of that working group? My impression 
is that it was not.

>But it also excludes conflicting WG Chairs and editors, along with 
>most of the IESG and at least part of the IAB.  It is valuable, I 
>believe, to have those we charge with implementing and interpreting 
>policies present and participating when they are shaped.

- We now have 2 ADs per area. It would certainly be possible to 
schedule this in such a way that at least one of them can attend, 
even if it did overlap with other groups.

- If this is actually going to take a full 2.5 hour session, perhaps 
it should be allowed to occupy two sessions and therefore allow all 
chairs to come to at least one of those sessions.

- The secretariat gets requests to avoid conflicts from chairs and 
the IESG all of the time. If it turns out that there are enough 
people who mention the conflict such that it must be scheduled in its 
own time slot, I have no objection. But first let's see if that's 
really the case before declaring this an "essential" meeting that we 
must make sure everyone and their mother can attend.

>But Dave's comment is important here, I think...

A missed attribution, I believe. Which comment were you referring to?

>if we can get the right people to this meeting, it may have some 
>educational value for those who want to contribute to IPR policy as 
>amateur lawyers.  Uneducated decisions (or even positions and 
>drafts) that are made largely by those people can, at best, waste 
>huge amounts of time and energy.

Are you saying that this session is *not* intended to be a discussion 
among the participants but rather a presentation by some experts to 
educate the unwashed among us (of which I may be one)? Not that I 
object to such a thing in principle, but why isn't that being planned 
for Sunday or part of an IAB or IESG plenary? Better yet, a draft 
written by experts or as the result of an IAB workshop would be much 
more useful before any face-to-face meeting was had. That way, people 
could get themselves educated and then talk intelligently about the 
topic.

Again, I'm not going to object to using meeting time for this kind of 
session if that's what's needed. But other than Harald's message, I 
have not heard anything about this since Minneapolis and have not 
heard folks clamoring for such a meeting. Heck, we haven't seen a 
proposed agenda for a meeting let alone an I-D. How was it decided 
that everyone would obviously want to go and that therefore a 
separate session was needed?
-- 
Pete Resnick <mailto:[email-masked]>
QUALCOMM Incorporated

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 17:28:44 -0400

At 02:58 PM 5/28/02 -0500, Pete Resnick wrote:
>Again, I'm not going to object to using meeting time for this kind of session if that's what's needed. But other than Harald's message, I have not heard anything about this since Minneapolis and have not heard folks clamoring for such a meeting. Heck, we haven't seen a proposed agenda for a meeting let alone an I-D. How was it decided that everyone would obviously want to go and that therefore a separate session was needed?

I'd like to see a session on IPR that doesn't conflict with
other meetings.  It would be endlessly great if it could be
declared mandatory :-).  IPR is increasingly a huge nuisance,
and because the current policy is less than completely clear
there's a lot of confusion about it when it comes up.
Although this may not be a problem (until the lawyers show
up) there's not a lot of consistency among working groups.  

Melinda

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 19:43:11 -0400

> even if it did overlap with other groups.

that's a stretch.  there are often 2 simultaneous WG meetings in
a given area, and there are often meetings in other areas worthy 
of an AD's attention.  basically AD attention is a scarce resource.

in general - there is (and should be) an attempt to schedule 
meetings in such a way as to minimize scheduling conflicts. putting 
meetings of general interest in time slots with little competition 
seems like a good way to do this.

Keith

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 17:27:31 -0700

At 07:43 PM 5/28/2002 -0400, Keith Moore wrote:
>  putting

That is called a plenary.

d/

----------

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 21:21:55 -0400

> That is called a plenary.

so call it a plenary, then.  

Keith

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 18:14:44 +0200

there's a reason POISSON has lately avoided having physical meetings unless 
it absolutely had to....

---

From: "Henk Uijterwaal (RIPE-NCC)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 09:33:19 +0200 (CEST)

On Tue, 28 May 2002, Melinda Shore wrote:

> >have not heard anything about this since Minneapolis and have not heard
> >folks clamoring for such a meeting. Heck, we haven't seen a proposed
> >agenda for a meeting let alone an I-D. How was it decided that everyone
> >would obviously want to go and that therefore a separate session was
> >needed?
>
> I'd like to see a session on IPR that doesn't conflict with other
> meetings. It would be endlessly great if it could be declared mandatory
> :-).  IPR is increasingly a huge nuisance, and because the current
> policy is less than completely clear there's a lot of confusion about it
> when it comes up. Although this may not be a problem (until the lawyers
> show up) there's not a lot of consistency among working groups.

I think that would be very useful if a couple of lawyers showed up in an
IPR session, listened to the comments and warned us for things that are
illegal or not legally implementable.

Henk

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Henk Uijterwaal                    Email: [email-masked]
RIPE Network Coordination Centre     WWW: http://www.ripe.net/home/henk
Singel 258                         Phone: +31.20.5354414
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That problem that we weren't having yesterday, is it better? (Big ISP NOC)

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 08:32:24 +0200

--On 28. mai 2002 14:58 -0500 Pete Resnick <[email-masked]> wrote:

> session if that's what's needed. But other than Harald's message, I have
> not heard anything about this since Minneapolis and have not heard folks
> clamoring for such a meeting. Heck, we haven't seen a proposed agenda for
> a meeting let alone an I-D. How was it decided that everyone would
> obviously want to go and that therefore a separate session was needed?

basically decided (proposed) by me after listening to the feedback from the 
plenary in Minneapolis, and a number of private discussions.
Not that *everyone* would want to go, but that the set of people who would 
want to go would be basically unknown, and not aligned along the "usual 
lines", but SHOULD include a large percentage of the IETF "leadership".
(It also allows the people who do NOT want to participate a chance to 
leave...)
And yes, we have explicitly invited Jorge Contreras, the "IETF lawyer".

We have used more time than I would like in getting this effort off the 
ground (this is not uncommon). We are hoping to announce the mailing list 
Real Soon Now.

                  Harald

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 11:03:43 +0200

Melinda Shore wrote:

> ...  IPR is increasingly a huge nuisance,

I think it's pretty clear. That doesn't mean it doesn't
cause confusion, because it certainly does. There is a strong
case for an informational document and presentation to try to
get rid of the confusion, but that doesn't need a meeting or a WG.

   Brian

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 09:36:44 -0400

>get rid of the confusion, but that doesn't need a meeting or a WG.

I really think that it depends on your definition of "pretty
clear."  Aside from situations in which some competing technologies
are encumbered and some are not, we're now finding ourselves in
situations where all of the proposed technologies are encumbered
but have different licensing terms.  I think that a new informational
document would benefit a great deal from real-time discussion, etc.,
if for no other reason to see which questions are raised.  A Friday
meeting seems to me to be a rather small one-time cost for getting
more clarity around the issue.

Melinda

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 09:57:26 -0400

On Wed, May 29, 2002 09:36:44AM -0400, Melinda Shore wrote:
> Aside from situations in which some competing technologies are
> encumbered and some are not, we're now finding ourselves in situations
> where all of the proposed technologies are encumbered but have
> different licensing terms.  I think that a new informational document
> would benefit a great deal from real-time discussion, etc., if for no
> other reason to see which questions are raised.  A Friday meeting
> seems to me to be a rather small one-time cost for getting more
> clarity around the issue.

Exactly.  And the problem with trying to work this particular, large,
issue in a small group or by mail is that the strong opinions don't get
vented and worked out.  I look forward to a special plenary.

..Scott

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 08:53:43 -0700

At 11:03 AM 5/29/2002 +0200, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>  There is a strong

It is not clear what category of meeting is intended.  Is it for education, 
BOF, or issue-resolving?

If the goal is education (presentation), why is a slot at the regular 
plenary not sufficient?

If the goal is a BOF, what questions will be put forward?

         Certainly we do not have to worry about whether there is 
sufficient community interest in IPR.  What we do not have a good sense of, 
perhaps, is what problems need to be resolved.

         Given the complexity of the topic and how little expertise most 
attendees will have, it is not clear how productive discussion can be 
without our having questions proposed ahead of time, with some discussion 
first.

         If the meeting gets the sort of large attendance being sought, 
"discussion" without significant history is likely to be quite unproductive.

If the goal is issue-resolving -- that is, equivalent to a working group 
meeting -- the requirements for discussion context is even more onerous 
than for a BOF.

Given the date today and the nearness of the IETF meeting, it makes quite a 
bit of sense to schedule presentations.  It is hard to imagine that there 
will be enough context developed by the time of the meeting to have 
productive discussion.

So if productive discussion, rather than mass presentation, is the goal, 
can someone explain how it can possibly be achieved under the current 
circumstances?

d/

----------

---

From: Graham Klyne <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 21:10:20 +0100

At 08:53 AM 5/29/02 -0700, Dave Crocker wrote:
> sufficient community interest in IPR.  What we do not have a good sense 
> of, perhaps, is what problems need to be resolved.

OK, here's a question:

How do we best approach the design of Internet technologies so that 
IPR-related obstructions to their deployment will be minimized?

#g

-------------------
Graham Klyne
<[email-masked]>

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 14:58:59 -0700

>IPR-related obstructions to their deployment will be minimized?

Excellent question.

However...

It is not clear that an entire week of discussion would be fruitful for 
that sort of deep and broad requirement for substantial process and concept 
invention, nevermind a couple of hours at the end of a long work-week, with 
little group preparation.

d/

----------

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 18:20:01 -0400

> IPR-related obstructions to their deployment will be minimized?

That assumes IPR-related goals are obstructions.  For me they're a pain
but I've been burned so I have no problem with people, including me,
protecting themselves.  Let's start one step back.  How can we best
approach the process of building and running the Internet to minimize
conflict between technology goals and IPR-related goals?

..Scott

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 15:35:26 -0700

sure is a lot of interest in this subject from diverse folk.  maybe
we should hold a wg/bof meeting on friday in yokohama to discuss it.

randy

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 18:34:55 -0400

On Wed, May 29, 2002 02:58:59PM -0700, Dave Crocker wrote:
> It is not clear that an entire week of discussion would be fruitful
> for that sort of deep and broad requirement for substantial process
> and concept invention, nevermind a couple of hours at the end of a
> long work-week, with little group preparation.

Personally I'm not after solutions yet.  IPR problems are lurking in
many working groups.  We're going to have to figure out new ways of
dealing with conflicting goals, and it's going to take a change to the
IETF culture to get enough people following them.  Polemicized email
arguments won't do it.  There are only two ways to change IETF culture:
(1) have people of influence issue a document of some sort and promote
it for 3 years, or (2) have a plenary meeting and come up with a good
sound bite to summarize a solution (like "we reject kings, presidents
and voting" etc.).  The first takes a long time.  I don't expect to
accomplish the second, but I'd like to allow for it.

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 16:19:41 -0700

>sound bite to summarize a solution (like "we reject kings, presidents

the sound bite came from a person of influence issuing it.  yes, it 
happened to be at a plenary, but it was a thoroughly "produced" occurrence.

>we should hold a wg/bof meeting on friday in yokohama to discuss it.

Sopunds like we are targeting a free-form coffee klatch or encounter group, 
to let all us ignorant folk vent our feelings on this difficult legal 
topic, and we all hope that there is an accident of brilliance that 
instantly solves everything -- even though we haven't solved it in 12 years 
of effort?

We seem to hold process-related IETF work to a very, very different 
standard of work specification than we hold for technical efforts.

d/

----------

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 20:12:09 -0500

>we should hold a wg/bof meeting on friday in yokohama to discuss it.

Oooo.....that's a good idea. While we're on topics which generate "a 
lot of interest from diverse folk", let's have a WG/BOF meeting on 
Friday in Yokohama to discuss the format of RFCs, and one more to 
talk about conformance testing. We could even have one to decide what 
top-level domain names we need, if you like.

Look, as I've said now multiple times, I think it's peachy to have a 
session if we have something to discuss (where "discuss" is defined 
as "participants interacting verbally"). However, I'm not convinced 
by anything said so far that we do. So far I have gleaned that 
perhaps there will be some expert who will explain to us what we need 
to know. That can be done as a 0.5-1.0 hour presentation on IESG 
plenary night, or better yet can be written up as an I-D. If the 
latter, and there is *fruitful* discussion of the draft (where 
"fruitful" is defined as "could benefit from high-bandwidth 
interaction"), then its time to go ahead with a WG/BOF on the topic. 
But the discussion so far on this list does not seem ripe enough to 
warrant one. And overall I'm pretty darn sick and tired of wasting my 
time in WG/BOF sessions where all I get is a series of undiscussed 
presentations that could have been done in I-Ds which I could have 
read before the meeting.
-- 
Pete Resnick <mailto:[email-masked]>
QUALCOMM Incorporated

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 21:19:21 -0400

> we should hold a wg/bof meeting on friday in yokohama to discuss it.

Just remember to let us non-travellers know what happened. ;)

-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Computer Systems Senior Engineer
				Virginia Tech

---

From: Graham Klyne <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 10:54:16 +0100

At 02:58 PM 5/29/02 -0700, Dave Crocker wrote:
>that sort of deep and broad requirement for substantial process and 
>concept invention, nevermind a couple of hours at the end of a long 
>work-week, with little group preparation.

Of course, but I didn't want to hog the mailing list ;-)

I was trying to follow your lead and focus on the real issue rather than 
wandering in the woods hand-wringing about the process for fixing an 
unspecified problem.  We all know there's an IPR problem facing Internet 
development, don't we?  But do we know (or, more importantly, agree) what 
the problem actually is?  Or are?

So starting from the question above, I would go on to ask:

- do we agree what constitutes IPR for the purpose of this debate?

- what are the demonstrable cases of IPR obstructing Internet technology 
deployment?  Looking for reasonably solid evidence here, not just 
hand-waving vaguenesses.

- are there any demonstrable cases of IPR actually promoting the deployment 
of new Internet technology?

- can we identify (and agree) a "top N" problems that need fixing (for some 
small N)?

- can we identify (and agree) things that we definitely do not want to change?

- what specialist legal input do we need to properly understand the 
identified problems?

Maybe addressing such questions would go the same way as all other debates 
on the topic.  But if we don't try to focus we'll never know.  I was trying 
to support your call, which I understood to be for such focus.

#g

-------------------
Graham Klyne
<[email-masked]>

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 09:48:04 -0400

At 08:12 PM 5/29/02 -0500, Pete Resnick wrote:
>And overall I'm pretty darn sick and tired of wasting my time in WG/BOF sessions where all I get is a series of undiscussed presentations that could have been done in I-Ds which I could have read before the meeting.

So don't go to the session.

One thing that's pretty clear is 1) that there's a problem, and 2)
nobody's exactly certain what the problem is.  I don't think that
putting some effort into trying to scope the problem is a bad idea.

Here's one for starters: there's no guidance on how or whether to
treat differences in licensing terms for competing proposals.  It
would be nice to be able to say that all other things being more-or-
less equal we should prefer technology which will be available
royalty-free, but that's not current policy and I have absolutely
no clue if there are legal problems with doing it.  (It might
also help damp some conduct problems that are arising out of people
being overly enthusiastic in promoting their encumbered technology.)
I wouldn't expect questions like that to be answered at an IPR
session, but I hope that issues like it will be raised.

Melinda

---

From: RJ Atkinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 10:59:27 -0400

On Thursday, May 30, 2002, at 09:48 , Melinda Shore wrote:
> royalty-free,

	Agree.

	My druthers would be to have an IETF policy explicitly saying that 
the first
choice is to use unencumbered technology if it can be made to work, 
second choice
is encumbered but royalty-free technology, and last choice is "fair and 
reasonable
licence terms" (or whatever the equivalent correct legal wording might be
for that last).

	And it would be good to have a conventional template for the 
royalty-free
licence -- one that the IETF's legal counsel has reviewed and believes 
is acceptable
for IETF purposes.

	Creating a separate open [email-masked] mailing list for these 
discussions
would also be helpful, IMHO.  Perhaps the IETF Chair could arrange such ?

Regards,

Ran
[email-masked]

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 11:15:58 -0400

On Thu, May 30, 2002 10:59:27AM -0400, RJ Atkinson wrote:
> 	My druthers would be to have an IETF policy explicitly saying
> 	that the first choice is to use unencumbered technology if it
> 	can be made to work, second choice is encumbered but
> 	royalty-free technology, and last choice is "fair and reasonable
> 	licence terms" (or whatever the equivalent correct legal wording
> 	might be for that last).

and if one solution is 120% better technically than another, but has a
RAND license associated with it?  What if it's 170% better?

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 17:20:18 +0200

> ... we should prefer technology which will be available
> royalty-free, but that's not current policy

Whose policy?

Some WGs have a policy (or are actually chartered) to develop deployable 
protocols.  Where a legal issue would make a protocol non-deployable, we have to 
look elsewhere.  (Of course, that only applies to parts of the IETF -- maybe one 
reason why an IETF-wide policy may be harder to come up with than e.g. in the W3C.)

Oh, and I would rather avoid the confusing term royalty-free.  Imagine a 
"technology" that is licensed royalty-free to end-users (i.e., every single user 
has to pay a lawyer to get a license contract in place, which then is 
royalty-free).  Royalty-free, but useless.
Lawyer-free/paperwork-free would be the more useful criterion.

Gruesse, Carsten

---

From: Marshall Rose <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 08:59:50 -0700

> RAND license associated with it?  What if it's 170% better?

working groups make trade-offs all the time between simplicity, functionality, and so on. licensing is another cost. given the amount of traffic on this topic, it appears that licensing is a very heavy cost. this may provide an answer to your question...

/mtr

---

From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 12:48:23 -0400

>> and if one solution is 120% better technically than another, but
 >> has a RAND license associated with it?  What if it's 170% better?
 >
 >

Marshall Rose wrote:

 > working groups make trade-offs all the time between simplicity,
 > functionality, and so on. licensing is another cost. given the amount
 > of traffic on this topic, it appears that licensing is a very heavy
 > cost. this may provide an answer to your question...
 >

Unfortunately, while we can compare proposals based on their complexity, 
maybe even performance or overhead, there is, in reality, usually no way 
to compare the actual licensing costs at the time a decision is made. At 
least as far as I know, none of the non-free licensing statements on the 
IETF web site contain any information on these terms, beyond vague 
generalities. "Reasonable" is hardly a term with engineering precision.

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 12:56:45 -0400

On Thu, May 30, 2002 08:59:50AM -0700, Marshall Rose wrote:
> > and if one solution is 120% better technically than another, but has
> > a RAND license associated with it?  What if it's 170% better?
> 

Given the content of the traffic on this topic, there is a range of
opinions about how heavy a cost it is -- which is what I wanted to bring
out.  

We can, if we like, declare that all standards must be unencumbered, but
by doing so we'll just make the IETF less relevant.  That ideal is left
over from the days when everyone was working for the common good -- in
some working groups it's wrong, and in others hard to apply.  Right now
there is no explicit guidance for working groups.  Smart ones figure out
creative solutions on their own.  I'd like to see some prose added to
the working group guidelines, not to lay out explicit rules, but to give
groups a framework for making decisions about standards and intellectual
property in the modern world.

..Scott

---

From: Bill Strahm <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 13:27:46 -0400 (EDT)

> licence -- one that the IETF's legal counsel has reviewed and believes
I disagree with this, I don't think the IETF can afford to keep a staff of
lawyers working on determining the licencing statements of all of the
standards being churned out.

That said, I don't think it would do any good anyway, lets say the IETF
lawyer gives his Okey Dokie, then my company implements the standard and a
problem with the licencing terms comes up... Who do I go sue, the IETF ???

I hope not, but that could be creating a legal liability for the IETF if
its lawyers make statements on the licencing terms of protocols...

Bill

---

From: Marshall Rose <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 11:25:45 -0700

> generalities. "Reasonable" is hardly a term with engineering precision.

i think the community has a lot of experience in seeing the costs of licensing. turn back the clock ten years and look at the rsa patent stuff... 

i'm sure lots of folks in different network areas have lots of similar examples. so, i'll go out on a limb and predict that, after a lot of community discussion, the concensus will come down to "non-RF licensing is very costly".

now, what does "very costly" mean? i'm not sure. we'll have to take it case by case. however, my gut tells me that if i'm comparing two algorithms, that are equivalent in most ways except that:

	one that's O(logN) with a non-RF license
and
	one that's O(NlogN) with an RF license

i probably wouldn't need to think very hard to go with the latter. simply because we'll see a lot more community good...

of course, ymmv, and that's fine too!

/mtr

---

From: RJ Atkinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 15:31:49 -0400

On Thursday, May 30, 2002, at 01:27 , Bill Strahm wrote:

>  I don't think the IETF can afford to keep a staff of

	Interesting, but actually no one suggested that.

	I said that IETF's lawyer ought to create *1* template of "known to be
acceptable".  I did not say "have an lawyer review each proposal a 
company
might make", nor did anyone else.  I did not say "require companies to 
use
the known to be acceptable template" nor did anyone else.  Still having
such can help well-intentioned firms, which are trying to figure out what
*an* acceptable approach might look like, do something reasonable without
having to guess.

> problem with the licencing terms comes up... Who do I go sue, the 

	See above.  The situation you outline (IETF lawyer reviews everything)
was NEVER proposed on this list.

	Amateur lawyer might be amusing to some, but not to me.  Experience
is that amateur lawyering isn't terribly useful on an IETF mailing list.
Having an example template created by IETF's lawyer, whatever that might
consist of, could even help reduce amateur lawyering (though I'm not that
optimistic myself).

Ran
[email-masked]

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 23:03:03 -0500

At 12:54 PM 5/30/2002 +0100, Graham Klyne wrote:
>- can we identify (and agree) a "top N" problems that need fixing (for 
>some small N)?

We have have had IPR-related rules for a long time.

So let me suggest that this one question out of your list is the only one 
we should first focus on.

Even though I have been around a number of problematic IPR situations in 
the IETF, I have no idea what problems we think need fixing (for which 
there is any real fix possible, that is.)

d/

----------

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 23:13:24 -0500

>RAND license associated with it?  What if it's 170% better?

And Scott's questions become particularly comfortable if we translate them 
into questions about protocol efficiency.  That is, we consider a range of 
merits, rather than just stating flat rules about single decision attributes.

To underscore the point that Marshall has been making:

The IETF has a strong preference to use unencumbered technologies.  When 
there is a choice between encumbered and unencumbered, the working group 
includes encumbrance into the range of factors it treats as important for 
evaluating alternatives.

There are some unknowns about licensing.  Some holders of IPR are helpful 
to resolving that easily and quickly.  Others are more reticent.  That 
become a component of the evaluation about the IPR factor.

And so on.

Generally this thread seems to be seeking determinacy for a matter that can 
only be made deterministic by a) ignoring IPR encumbrance, or b) rejecting 
all IPR encumbrances.  The first is not compatible with IETF culture.  The 
latter is not practical in some cases.

So, what exactly do folks think is a practical kind of change to the 
current IETF policies?

d/

----------

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 08:40:17 +0300 (EEST)

> So, what exactly do folks think is a practical kind of change to the 

I think the most effective thing would be to send a strong signal of some
kind: "If you patent technologies and give non-RF licenses, _do not expect
the technology be supported in IETF at all_".  Cannot adapt
internet-drafts with RAND terms as working group documents unless
explicitly chartered to do so etc. (Though there could be a case-by-case
appeals process or whatever -- if something really really major would show
up.)

A bad thing IETF could do (but not the worst luckily :-) is to give a
signal "Ok.. feel free to patent and give RAND licensing.. depending how
good it is, we might give it a standards status or we might not".  That
_encourages_ to do patents (or try to), and we want to avoid that.

That way, RAND and other restrictions would only be used to harass IETF
progress (and those of their competitors) with patents that they never
intend to go to standards.  But we can't avoid that anyway.

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "Tell me of difficulties surmounted,
Netcore Oy                   not those you stumble over and fall"
Systems. Networks. Security.  -- Robert Jordan: A Crown of Swords

---

From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 16:09:47 +0700

Date:        Thu, 30 May 2002 23:13:24 -0500
    From:        Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
    Message-ID:  <[email-masked]>

  | So, what exactly do folks think is a practical kind of change to the 
  | current IETF policies?

Actually, like many things, I suspect that the underlying problem
that we're seeing is in quite a different area than the one we're
looking in.

My suggestion to fix this problem is quite simple

	No more last calls before moving protocols to historic,
	except where they're full standards already.

For everything else, going to historic should be automatic.  That is,
the only way to avoid any spec being made historic automatically, is
for it to become a full standard.

This is more or less saying what Henning Schulzrinne said before I got
the chance...

	The problem is that very few standards make it to Draft.

Exactly.   We have developed a culture of getting the work to PS
status, and considering it done.   We even disband working groups
(or move them to dormant status, which is effectively the same thing)
as soon as all their docs have been published.

And the implementors see that - as soon as something has reached PS
status, it is considered finished, and we even have people getting
upset (because of the deployed base we'll be breaking) if any changes
get made.

That's what's really broken here - we actually have almost the prefect
IPR policy in place, but we're not bothering to actually attempt to
use it before it is way too late.

What we need to do is make sure that everything gets to draft standard
within a relatively short time after it has reached PS, say 9-12
months (preserving the current 6 month minimum to make sure there's
enough time for implementations to be attempted).   Anything that
hasn't made it to DS then should simply be shelved, abandoned (DS isn't
much of a hurdle after all).   And we should be actively discouraging
distribution in products of anything that isn't at least DS (to do
that we probably should get into the habbit of making random innocuous
changes to docs when they go to DS state - like if we have commands
that are issues in binary and they're 1, 2, 3, ... (as usual), we
just change which is 1, which is 2, etc so everyone actually running
the code has to update - which of course is impossible after something
has been shipped.

Then again, we need to make sure that all DS's get elevated to full
standard quickly, or dropped.   This is where the IPR rules really
get exercised, where we see if the proposal has IPR rules that make
it difficult to implement and deploy or not.   If the IPR rules cause
problems, then the doc won't reach Std status, and again, that should
mean that it is automatically made historic and abandoned.

It isn't the IPR rules that need changing here, the current formulation
that Christian Huitema came up with is almost certainly the best we
can do - anything different is far more likely to cause problems than
to solve any.

kre

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 08:42:23 -0400

> _encourages_ to do patents (or try to), and we want to avoid that.

Patents *in and of themselves* are not a Bad Thing. As far as the IETF goes,
the problem only arises when the patent is used to enforce a restrictive
licensing policy.

Can anybody think of a reason the IETF should object to patented tech *per se*,
as opposed to objecting to *hard-to-license* patented tech (the latter I think
we have consensus as being a Bad Thing)...
-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Computer Systems Senior Engineer
				Virginia Tech

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 09:03:43 -0400

> for it to become a full standard.

OK.. I'll bite - at what point should a not-yet-full standard expire to
historic?

And the flip side - we've moved an amazingly SMALL number of documents
to Full Standard, and only when we *think* we *fully* understand things.
Even then, things have been known to get "out of sync" with reality:

1119 Network Time Protocol (version 2) specification and
     implementation. D.L. Mills. Sep-01-1989. (Format: TXT=143, PS=518020,
     PDF=187940 bytes) (Obsoletes RFC0958, RFC1059) (Obsoleted by RFC1305)
     (Also STD0012) (Status: STANDARD)

1305 Network Time Protocol (Version 3) Specification, Implementation.
     David L. Mills. March 1992. (Format: TXT=307085, PDF=442493 bytes)
     (Obsoletes RFC0958, RFC1059, RFC1119) (Status: DRAFT STANDARD)

One of the *GOOD* things about protocols living at DS is that you can convince
vendors to start supporting the *new* DS rather than the *old* one.  I've
had *enough* fun with one vendor who insisted on sticking with RFC2133
rather than updating to RFC2553 for IPv6 socket API, even though both
are only Informational.
-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Computer Systems Senior Engineer
				Virginia Tech

---

From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 22:34:06 +0700

Date:        Fri, 31 May 2002 09:03:43 -0400
    From:        [email-masked]
    Message-ID:  <[email-masked]>

  | OK.. I'll bite - at what point should a not-yet-full standard expire to
  | historic?

Pretty quickly.   What the max period at DS should be I'm not sure, but
certainly no more than 2 years.

The point not being to shed lots of stuff necessarily of course, but
to put more pressure on all of us to take the comparatively small
steps needed to move the docs up the chain.   Compared with the work
needed to get something to PS state, the rest of it isn't difficult
really.

  | And the flip side - we've moved an amazingly SMALL number of documents
  | to Full Standard, and only when we *think* we *fully* understand things.

That's the problem.   Or it is with the IPR issues.   It is determining whether
we can make that final step (widespread deployment is what is required,
expecting full understanding of almost anything is naïve) that actally
decides whether or not the IPR rights holder is being reasonable or not.

That's what we really need to figure out relatively quickly - we can't
wait 10 years with docs in PS (and a lesser number DS) state with everyone
assuming they are *the* standard - then we haven't properly tested any
IPR problems that might exist.

  | One of the *GOOD* things about protocols living at DS is that you can
  | convince vendors to start supporting the *new* DS rather than the *old* one.

Yes, that's true - but it would be even easier if the new one were a
full standard (even if the old one was too).

kre

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 11:48:24 -0400

> full standard (even if the old one was too).

How would that work (having 2 full standards for the same exact thing)?

---

From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 22:55:34 +0700

Date:        Fri, 31 May 2002 11:48:24 -0400
    From:        [email-masked]
    Message-ID:  <[email-masked]>

  | How would that work (having 2 full standards for the same exact thing)?

Depends on what the thing is, and how precisely you mean "the same exact 
thing".

In some cases it wouldn't - it is common for a new std to obsolete an old
one, no reason that can't continue.

But sometimes the new std is written in such a way that the old one can
also continue.   Eg: the standard for IP.   There's a new one (not yet
full std, but really should be by now), and the old one.  They do the same
job, but can co-exist (version field works, though other ways used more
commonly).   You might say those are not the same thing, but the new one
really is intended as a replacement (eventually) for the old.

kre

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 20:00:47 +0200

> the technology be supported in IETF at all_".  

The problem is that there are enough companies out there that don't care.

There are some areas of technology out there where companies that don't need 
IETF-style interoperability have essentially patented every possible branch of 
the decision tree (and are continuing to do so).  What should the IETF do here?

Fortunately, we don't do codecs.  Whew.  However, there may be other areas where 
the only remaining way forward is to actively cut through the existing jungle of 
utterly bogus patents.

By the way, I do completely agree with your point.  Just pointing out that it 
may not be enough.

Gruesse, Carsten

---

From: "Theodore Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 14:09:14 -0400

> So, what exactly do folks think is a practical kind of change to the 

I think the problem is that while there is (very) rough consensus
IETF-wide that there is a strong cultural bias against patent
encumberances (*), this bias is not adequately documented in writing.
This is exacerbated by the fact that some IETF working groups,
particularly those where a greater number of the participants do not
have as much IETF experience and acculturation.  This is happening
more and more as we start doing more cross-collaborations with other
standards bodies, and when technologies which previously had been used
on top of other media are "ported" to IP, and people who had been used
to working in other standards bodies find them selves working within
the IETF.  

(*) Unless there is a ***very*** reason why you can't do without the
patent --- RSA signatures/encryption being classic example, but even
there, RSA DSI's licensing policies were probably far more effective
that the U.S. government's export control regime at preventing the
deployment of secure protocols in the Internet).

Many of these newcomers to the IETF very dutifully read the relevant
RFC's (2026, et. al.), and then are surprised either (a) they get
strong push back from the IESG, or (b) their decisions get attacked at
IETF plenery sessions, the IETF mailing list, or in other venues.
They are get surprised, and there is some fairness to their argument
that this bias against non-RF patents isn't written down anywhere and
isn't formally part of our policies.

Granted, we can't document every tiny detail of cultural biases within
the IETF in our policy documents, but I think this one is important
enough that we need to say something.  Once we do decide that we need
to say something, then the next question is exactly where do we draw
the line, and that's where all of the discussion and long missives to
the IETF mailing list are coming from.  

Although it's pretty clear we won't be able to give working groups an
algorithmic flowchart about when a non-RF patent is acceptable, I do
believe that we can give some general guidelines, and then require
that the working group chair work with the area director when this
sort of issue raises its ugly head.  This won't solve the "stealth
patent" problem, where the patent problems only reveal themselves very
late in the process, or even after document is published as an RFC,
but it does handle a large number of other cases.

						- Ted

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 17:44:54 +0200

> its lawyers make statements on the licencing terms of protocols...

Bill,

The IETF isn't incorporated, so there is no way it can make such statements.
The IETF's corporate umbrella is the Internet Society. Now I haven't
consulted ISOC's CEO and VPs but I am on pretty safe ground in asserting
that you are correct: ISOC would never accept such a liability. Our
insurance company wouldn't let us.

Brian E Carpenter 
Board Chairman, Internet Society http://www.isoc.org
INET 2002, Washington, DC, 18-21 June http://www.inet2002.org

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 00:13:13 +0300 (EEST)

> we have consensus as being a Bad Thing)...

Some reasons have been given already about the evilness of (almost) all 
patents.

I'll add one that hasn't been widely discussed.

The patent holder is in charge of the licensing.  So he could do e.g.:
 - write so ambiguous licensing terms nobody has the courage to implement 
the spec without long, long consultation with lawyers
 - the licensing terms could have a few (intentionally or unintentionally) 
clauses that can afterwards interpreted differently *)
 - change the license afterwards

*) an example of this is:

http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/ISI-NGTRANS.txt, specifically:

--8<--
[...] If
SRI's submission (or portions thereof) is accepted and becomes part of
the IETF standard, then SRI will grant royalty-free permission under
such patents for both commercial and non-commercial uses, to the extent
_necessary for compliance_ with the standard. [...]
--8<--
(underlining mine)

This can be interpreted that everyone implementing a MAY or SHOULD in the 
specification could be blamed for infringing the licensing terms 
afterwards.

Fun, eh?

.. If it takes a lawyer to write (or understand) licensing terms, they're
probably too complex ..