Subject: Re: IPR and I-D boilerplate

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 08:23:34 -0700

Peter Deutsch wrote:
> g'day,
> 
> 
> John C Klensin wrote:
> . . . 
> 
>>Please, folks, I am _not_ trying to restart the discussion of
>>"archival" I-Ds.  Personally, I remain opposed to the idea, and
>>I believe that they should be treated as drafts and discarded.
>>If they result in an RFC, then the RFC should stand on its own.
>>Nor do I think that there is any quick fix to the patent
>>situation, least of all anything like this.
> 
> 
> Well, without repeating the entire thread yet again there were pretty
> categoric statements made during the last iteration of this thread that
> a Drafts archive *was* going up "soon". Has this idea been shelved,
> canceled, delayed or absorbed by the event horizon surrounding the
> infinitely dense Black Hole that is the intellectual property mess? ;-)
> 
> And if we're going to state our own opinions in an aside, I personally
> believe that such an archive would be invaluable. "He who fogets history
> is doomed to repeat it" and all that....

Yes. The history here is the reason why the drafts are ephemeral and not 
archived - to encourage the exchange of incomplete ideas. The success of 
this history is what is being compromised.

Archiving them creates an environment where drafts and updates will be 
stalled, with the response "well, since this is archival, we'd better 
get it a little more complete". Given how long it takes for even the 
active drafts to make it to RFC with such discussion, the chilling 
effect on the creation of RFCs (at least by people who _are_ careful, 
who you want to encourage) may grind things to a halt.

Joe

---

From: Peter Deutsch <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 09:41:36 -0700

Joe Touch wrote:
. . . 
> who you want to encourage) may grind things to a halt.

Well, if the community collectively decided that they didn't want to
remember its history, that would be fine but I mentioned this because I
thought that when we last went through this it was the consensus that
remembering would be a "Good Thing" (to quote a well know flowing
arranging allegedly insider trader.. ;-) and I saw statements that an
archive was coming "soon". This may have been in out-of-band
communications, not the list but in any event as Graham has pointed out,
ISOC is doing this now. Good stuff...

FWIW, I personally don't buy the "it will have a chilling effect on
discussion" arguement, given that the email lists are archived here,
there and everywhere and now Google has all the old Usenet postings up.
Have you actually gone to Google and checked out the Usenet archives?
It's amazing what's out there.

So why not RFC Drafts? I've already had cause a couple of times to help
research a couple of prior art claims and I was amazed to find out what
was still out there. It was just hard to track down. I don't think we do
ourselves any favours by forcing folks into this "attic cleaning" mode.
We might as well put it all out as a tool for research, because it's not
just about patent claims. It's actually useful to trace out the
development process so you can understand it, and make it work better.
Sort of a first derivative of research, to do research about research I
guess...

					- peterd

-- 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
    Peter Deutsch                       [email-masked]
    Gydig Software

   That's it for now. Remember to read chapter 11 on the
   implications of quantum mechanic theory for time travel
   and be prepared to have been here last week to discuss.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 14:40:12 -0400

it's really very simple: people posted I-Ds with the assurance that they
would be retired after six months.  it's not reasonable for IETF to 
violate that assurance without permission.

so if IETF wants to make old drafts publically available (and I agree
this could be a useful thing), it really should get permission from the 
authors. or at least notify them and give authors the chance to say 
"please do not make my old documents publically accessible".

it would also be reasonable to allow authors to specify, when submitting
a new I-D, whether the draft should be made available after expiration.

Keith

---

From: Peter Deutsch <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 13:55:06 -0700

> violate that assurance without permission.

Errr, people post IDs to publicly accessible mailing lists which are
being archived onto the Internet. One consequence of this is that copies
of those drafts (and everything else posted to the mailing list) will
never leave the net. The question is how hard it is going to be for
folks to access them in the future, and whether it is useful for the
IETF as a whole to make sure that such access is simple for all.

What I think folks may reasonably assume is that any draft they post
will go out of scope after six months and not be in consideration for
working group study but it's unrealistic, and has been since about 1988,
to think that they you can arrange for them to disappear from the face
of the Internet and not be accessible after that period.

> "please do not make my old documents publically accessible".

If you really think this is practical, then you should contact the nices
folks at Google and ask them to take down the Usenet archives, and
perhaps look around at the various unofficial mailing archives that so
many folks run today. First time I went to the Google archive I found
postings I'd made in 1987 are still floating around. It never occured to
me that I could ask Google to stop sharing my misspent youth with the
world...

> a new I-D, whether the draft should be made available after expiration.

Sorry, I don't see this as being reasonable *or* practical. If you work
in private groups to develop private standards this might be reasonable,
but the IETF works very hard to make their work publically accessible
and one consequence of that is that folks have to accept that entering
the process means everything you do is going to be "out there". Even if
the IETF didn't run such an archive of mailing lists, etc other folks
do, and have done so for a long time. All we're talking about here is
simplifying things...

					- peterd

--

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 14:10:23 -0700

Keith Moore wrote:
> if respecting the author's wishes isn't reasonable or practical,
> it might be that you live in a pretty warped world.

Or a courtroom (or will).

These aren't just wishes; there are valid copyright issues.

Joe

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 17:22:16 -0400

> These aren't just wishes; there are valid copyright issues.

perhaps. but even if the lawyers said it was okay for IETF
to make those archives public, I'd still argue that it's
acting in bad faith for IETF to do so without a reasonable
effort to get permission.

i.e. laws and ethics aren't the same thing.

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2002 00:43:48 +0300 (EEST)

> effort to get permission.

I fail to see how this would be a problem.

At time X, there is an announcement (on mailing list, internet-drafts@ 
autoresponder, whatnot) that archives will be made available.

At time X+6 months expired drafts are purged, and all drafts are also 
archived.

It can then be assumed that the author will be aware of the policy wrt. 
his drafts.

-- 
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: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 23:07:20 -0400

--On Monday, 01 July, 2002 13:55 -0700 Peter Deutsch
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> so if IETF wants to make old drafts publically available (and
>> I agree this could be a useful thing), it really should get
>> permission from the authors. or at least notify them and give
>> authors the chance to say "please do not make my old
>> documents publically accessible".
> 
> If you really think this is practical, then you should contact
> the nices folks at Google and ask them to take down the Usenet
> archives, and perhaps look around at the various unofficial
> mailing archives that so many folks run today. First time I
> went to the Google archive I found postings I'd made in 1987
> are still floating around. It never occured to me that I could
> ask Google to stop sharing my misspent youth with the world...

It may be desirable that it not occur to you, but you probably
could do just that.  As I understand the copyright rules, and
the notice-and-takedown provisions, at least in the US, you
could presumably notify Google that they had duplicated and
posted your copyrighted material without your permission, that
you did not grant such permission, and that you insisted that
they take specific materials down.   And they would have little
choice other than to do so.

> Sorry, I don't see this as being reasonable *or* practical. If
> you work in private groups to develop private standards this
> might be reasonable, but the IETF works very hard to make
> their work publically accessible and one consequence of that
> is that folks have to accept that entering the process means
> everything you do is going to be "out there". Even if the IETF
> didn't run such an archive of mailing lists, etc other folks
> do, and have done so for a long time. All we're talking about
> here is simplifying things...

Peter, the instructions for I-D authors (see
http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-guidelines.txt) are, and have
always been, quite clear that it is possible to post an I-D with
the "option 3" clause, e.g., "This document is an Internet-Draft
and is NOT offered in accordance with Section 10 of RFC2026, and
the author does not provide the IETF with any rights other than
to publish as an Internet-Draft".  That provision involves no
transfer of copyright and no authorization to do anything beyond
the expiration date.  That seems pretty specific.  If you think
it unreasonable, I'd take it up with the IPR effort/BOF.

    john

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 17:08:13 -0400

> being archived onto the Internet.

*some* people do that, and I wish they wouldn't.  they should just
post the I-D name and the abstract.  if we want to read the draft
we're perfectly capable of downloading it ourselves...

> The question is how hard it is going to be for

yawn.  it's not as if this is a new discussion.  it's one thing
for the drafts to be available elsewhere, another thing for IETF
to go back on its word.  it's an integrity thing.

(granted, integrity is in short supply these days in many places)

> folks at Google and ask them to take down the Usenet archives

they'll happily remove your postings if you ask them to do so.
maybe the same thing, with adqeuate notice, would be okay for IETF
and old I-Ds.

the point being - sure it's useful to have thsoe drafts available,
but please take reasonable steps to protect authors' interests.
don't blindly assume that you have the right to ignore the original
terms of use.  that's just irresponsible.

> Sorry, I don't see this as being reasonable *or* practical.

respect for document authors' wishes, keeping one's word.
what strange concepts!

Keith