I'm trying to summarize in a way that might someday be translated into IETF process, and not Yet Another Great Discussion On Ietf@ietf.org That Doesn't Result in Change...

I agree with John's suggestion that IPR disclosures be handled as "moderated postings", and I assume that we could actually come up with a short canonical list of things to look for. This would help with cruft on the front end.

We might also want to distinguish between IPR disclosures for CURRENT I-Ds and the complete (non-cruft) list of IPR disclosures on any I-Ds that have ever been submitted. This would help with cruft on the back end, and make it easier for working groups to consider IPR disclosures relevant to technologies included in their drafts, which I understand to be the primary reason why we ask for disclosures in the first place.

It became obvious to the community over a period of years that the IETF did have a more-or-less-complete repository of all I-Ds, but most people didn't have access to it - that's not what I'm talking about, of course.

Thanks,

Spencer

Brian,

I believe that the right way to handle these cases involves _not_ having IPR submissions go directly to the database but instead be the subject of a nominal manual review (or, if you prefer "moderated postings"). If something passes that review --whose only criterion should be that it has the general form, structure, and content of an IPR disclosure (which the above clearly does not), then it goes into the database. If not, it goes into a quarantine area with senders given, say, 30 days to protest that classification.

Those who appear to be mounting denial of service attacks on that process could be dealt with just as we deal with those who mount such attacks on IETF mailing lists.

Being a little proactive in that way prevents nonsense from getting into the database in the first place and saves us discussions about the appropriate boundaries for removing something already posted. If that sort of quick review is too expensive, then I think we are stuck with comments that some postings are nonsense because there is a slippery slope that leads toward evaluating the content of such postings; I think it unwise for the IETF to be anywhere near that slope. If I correctly understand some of your recent postings, we are fairly close to agreement on that subject, even if you might be willing to wander a bit closer to the edge than I am.

john


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