Subject: [ogpx] An administrative note about mailing-list participation

From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 19:40:06 -0400

First, let me say that this isn't written to anyone in particular, nor
with respect to any discussion thread in particular, nor in response
to any existing problem.  The working group chairs (Barry Leiba and
Joshua Bell) and the Area Director (Alexey Melnikov) simply think that
it's a good idea to make this all clear.  Most of what I say here will
be obvious, but there are some IETF-process-related points.

There have always been participants in the IETF who choose not to be
identified by traditional "full names", preferring to use nicknames,
initials, or even email address alone.  The IETF has welcomed such
participants, and continues to do so.  Yet, the VWRAP working group
presents a situation unique in the IETF's experience with respect to
the culture of pseudonyms and other alternative names used by its
participants in other venues.

Anyone who participates in any IETF discussions, including here on the
mailing list, agrees, by that participation, to the "Note Well" terms
[ http://www.ietf.org/about/note-well.html ].  That means, in part,
that they're responsible for disclosing intellectual property rights
(IPR) of which they're aware.  Please be sure you understand that
point, and see the relevant RFCs (the "Note Well" notice has
pointers).  Clearly, if you have IPR to disclose there's going to have
to be some real-world identification involved, which will include the
real identity of the owner of the IPR.

Anyone who is a document author or editor must be contactable.  We
normally ask for name, affiliation, address, phone number, and email
address for that, but not all of it is always provided, and we can
work around some of that.  The bottom line here is that what the
authors provide must be given in good faith, and anyone reading the
documents must be able to contact the authors.

For other participants, identification doesn't matter, apart from your
agreement to abide by the Note Well terms.  As I said above, this has
always been the case, even without virtual worlds.  We ENCOURAGE
everyone to use full, real-world names and, when reasonable, to
disclose affiliations.  What we REQUIRE is that participants either
use a single, consistent identity or make it clear what set of
identities they're using.  If Joe Slobotnik, Shaquila Yazenzatta, and
the Lone Haranguer all post to the mailing list, there should never be
any question of whether or not they represent the same human
participant.  Misrepresentation along these lines might be cause for
administrative action.

It will also help if participants are familiar with the IETF Working
Group Guidelines and Procedures (BCP 25), RFC 2418.  The best
introduction to the IETF, for those of you who are new, is Paul
Hoffman's excellent document "The Tao of IETF":
http://www.ietf.org/tao.html .  Questions about the IETF or its
process are welcome, either on the list or in private email.  If you
ask on the list, please use a new subject to create a new thread, so
your question doesn't get lost in the middle of some other discussion.

Finally, note that you can contact the chairs and the Area Directors
for any working group through the tools aliases WGNAME-chairs and
WGNAME-ads.  For this working group, those addresses are
<[email-masked]> and <[email-masked]>.

Barry (and Joshua), VWRAP working group chair(s)

---

From: Morgaine <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2009 10:07:00 +0100

Hi Barry! :-)

Thanks for a very comprehensive summary of the rules, and a reminder in case
we forgot them from earlier. :-)  I was particularly interested in the
reference to pseudonyms, as this affects many of us here, including myself.

With regards to "Note Well" and the Tao and numerous other IETF documents
about procedure and IPR and best current practices (not forgetting the
Mission Statement), I assembled a shortlist of the most applicable
introductory IETF documents I could find during the runup to the MMOX BoF,
and much of this material still applies to OGPX / VWRAP.  While only a
personal selection, it's here in case anyone new to our group wants a fast
track to relevant documents, within the MMOX links page at
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/MMOX#IETF_Information .  This is
supplemental to our official IETF wiki page at
http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/vwrap/trac/wiki/ , although the latter will
hopefully grow to include additional material.

(MMOX itself may still bloom as well, as VWRAP has a much narrower scope.
Both Opensim and realXtend have interop features that are not inherited from
OGP and which are being developed further as we speak, and Croquet and
DarkStar/Wonderland are frequently discussed in our in-world SL interop
group, so who knows what the future might hold.)

Back on your subject of pseudonyms which was strongly relevant to
participants such as myself, I wish to take this opportunity to declare that
I know and acknowledge and comply fully with the "Note Well" and Tao and
Mission Statement as well as everything else that you have mentioned.  I
regard the undersigned as my professional working name for everything
related to virtual worlds, and it is the only name which I have used or will
use in this workgroup, so no ambiguity can occur.  Having had this name
registered and highly active and contactable in Second Life since August of
2004 also reinforces this.   Finally, I take particular note of and embrace
your sentence about providing information in good faith, which I consider
part of being a professional.

While at this time I do not have any desire to write an IETF draft as I
trust that existing authors will incorporate our requested modifications in
new versions when there is rough consensus for change, in principle this
could happen one day, and then we'll have to see how, or if, your contact
requirements can be satisfied.  It was very interesting to hear you explain
that we are to some extent breaking new IETF ground in this area. :-)

With regards to IPR, the situation is extremely simple for me since I do not
own any IPR and hence have none to declare.  Also, I am not party to any
company's IPR either, having worked freelance for the better part of two
decades and had no exposure to any relevant encumbered technologies.  This
probably is as clean an IPR slate as one can have on this front.  Being
strongly pro-Free/Open Source Software, I would of course want it no other
way.

If you have any further suggestions for those of us wishing to work
pseudonymously but very professionally in this way towards IETF goals, I
would be delighted to hear them. :-)

Best regards,

Morgaine Dinova.

===========================================

On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 12:40 AM, Barry Leiba <
[email-masked]> wrote:

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