Dave, --On Tuesday, 16 December, 2008 10:26 -0800 Dave CROCKER <d...@dcrocker.net> wrote:
> Indeed. But more importantly, this sub-thread naturally and > inevitably reduces down to an infinite, entirely unproductive > finger-pointing game. For various reasons, I don't believe that game is infinite. I believe that we all had the opportunity to identify these problems during Last Call or earlier and that no one did a careful enough review. That means that the finger points to either everyone participating in the IETF or to the fundamental process we use to review and approve this type of documents. Neither is infinite, but it makes the exercise even more non-productive. > We have a reality that the new IPR rules are fundamentally > problematic. Prior to their imposition, we had a functioning > system. Now we don't. > > And the only thing that changed was imposition of the new > rules. Nothing else happened. > > The proposals are mostly about adding another layer of 'fix' > to what was supposed, itself, to be an incremental fix. The > odds that we will get that additional layer wrong are > demonstrably high. And that is precisely why my I-D turns things into a choice between new rules and old rules, based only on the conclusion of the submitter about what is important... and why it does not attempt to "fix" 5378. I agree with you about the odds of getting an additional layer right, especially so if we try to do it quickly. > We should, instead, re-invoke the previous rules, until we > figure out how to make the correct changes. Yes, "just suspend 5378 until we get this sorted out and then, if necessary, repeal it and start over" did occur to me. I tried to suggest last week that the IAOC and Trustees figure out a way to do just that, if necessary generating a pro-forma appeal of something that would permit the IESG to take an equivalent action. If I correctly understand the responses we received, that wasn't believed to be possible. The Trustees have advice of Counsel (who is also a co-author of 5378) and I don't in that matter, so, if they concluded that they couldn't figure out a way to defer 5378 and reinvoke the previous rules, I think we need to accept that and move on. Of course, we could generate an I-D whose only substantive text was either "move 5378 to historic and un-obsolete 3978 and 4749" or "suspend application of 5378 until some specified condition happens". I know how to write the first. I don't know how to write the second, but maybe someone else does. I took the path that my I-D specifies because I concluded that we have gotten into a place in which re-invoking the old rules is not possible. With the usual IANAL disclaimers, it appears to me that we are in the following situation: * Documents have been posted with RFC 5378 language. * At least some of the Trustees believe, presumably on advice of Counsel, that RFC 5378 has been in effect since November 10, that everything done in the IETF since November 10 is covered by it, including everything that happened during IETF 73, and that 3978 became obsolete and of no effect on that date. It appears that all RFCs posted after that date carry the 5378 language. While some of us have a bit of trouble with the logic on which that belief is based, we know that legal logic is sometimes different from normal logic and assume that any controversy about 5378 effectiveness would not be resolved until settled by a court. I can't speak for others, but I don't want to go near that solution if it can be avoided. * Ignoring all of the non-IETF uses for the moment, RFC 5378 is not a linear descendant of 3978 and its predecessors, but a change in direction from "authors grant rights to the IETF and its participants" to "authors grant rights to the IETF Trust, which then grants rights back to IETF participants so we can do work". If we suspend or repeal 5378 to re-invoke the previous rules, it appears to me that any documents covered by the 5378 rules fall into a strange never-never land in which the IETF may have _no_ rights to them at all. Remembering that set of documents contains anything from several RFCs and I-Ds to all of IETF history since before IETF 73, that is an unattractive situation, to put it mildly. * One could argue that everything published or contributed between November 10 and now is still covered by the (old) Note Well and hence that the old rules are still in effect in parallel to the rules of 5378, i.e., that Contributors are making both the old grant direct to IETF participants and the new grant to the IETF Trust. That position would be a little inconsistent with the assertion that 3978 become obsolete when 5378 was published and with the belief that everything done since November 10 is strictly covered by 5378 but, again, IANAL and someone who is might be able to figure out a way to thread that particular needle. What I'm pretty sure of, again subject to the usual disclaimers, is that the draft-klensin-rfc5378rev skirts those problems, leaving us in a position that the old rules can be used for anything that contains old text if the author thinks that is necessary but that leaves the new rules standing and available.... at least until we can get all of this sorted out. Perhaps a different way to say that is that I think our intent is the same but that, if it is plausible that documents actually exist to which the new rules apply and the old ones don't, the mechanism for accomplishing it cannot be quite as simple as "re-invoke the previous rules". Looking up from the bottom of the rathole,... At least I hope I'm at the bottom and don't have further to descend... john _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf