Subject: proposed charter

From: Steve Bellovin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 13:00:13 -0400

Here is a proposed charter for this working group.  Comments?  
Additions?  Deletions?  Corrections?

----
he IETF and the Internet have greatly benefited from the free
exchange of ideas and technology.  For many years the IETF normal
behavior was to standardize only unencumbered technology.

While the "Tao" of the IETF is still strongly oriented toward
unencumbered technology, we can and do make use of technology that
has various encumbrances.  One of the goals of RFC2026 "The Internet
Standards Process -- Revision 3" was to make it easier for the IETF
to make use of encumbered technology when it made sense to do so.

The IETF IPR policy, as embedded in RFC 2026 section 10, has proven
fairly successful.  At the same time, a perceived lack of textual
clarity on some issues have made necessary the publication of
clarifications such as the "note well" statement issued in every
registration package, the I-D boilerplate rules, and a huge number
of discussions on specific IPR-related issues.

This working group is chartered with updating and clarifying section
10 of BCP 9, RFC 2026, which deals with intellectual property
rights, including, but not necessarily limited to, patent rights
and copyrights.

This working group will provide three documents:

        A BCP document, updating RFC 2026, which states the IETF
        IPR policy on rights relevant to the document publication
        process, such as copyright issues and trademark issues.

        A BCP document, updating RFC 2026, which states the IETF
        IPR policy on rights relevant to the use of IETF-standardized
        technology, such as patent-related claims

        An Informational document, which describes useful rules of
        thumb for working group chairs and working group members
        when working on IPR issues, as well as describing specific
        cases of IPR issues that have been successfully worked out
        in the IETF process, and providing references to specific
        examples of licensing statements and copyright provisions
        that have proved useful or worrisome.  In other words, we
        plan to document the running code of our process.

The working group will attempt to work in three phases:

        1.Document existing IPR practice in the IETF

        2.Identify issues with current IPR practice that need to
        be addressed

        3.Modify the documents produced in step 1 to reflect the
        outcome of the discussion of items identified in step 2.

If there consensus of the working group for a different IPR policy
than the one described in RFC 2026, the working group will seek to
amend its charter to make it clear that it is changing the status quo.

The working group will have a design team to assist with document
drafting and review.  As always, design team drafts have no special
status, and are subject to amendment, ratification, and/or replacement
by the working group.

Goals and Milestones:

June 02
  1st draft of updated IPR BCP document on documents - documenting
  existing practice
June 02
  1st draft of updated IPR BCP document on technology -
  documenting existing practice
June 02
  1st draft of "IPR guidance" document
July 02
  List of issues that need to be discussed while revising the documents
Aug 02
  2nd draft of updated IPR BCP document on documents
Aug 02
  2nd draft of updated IPR BCP document on technology
Sep 02
  2nd draft of IPR guidance document
Sep 02
  IPR BCP document on documents sent to IETF Last Call
Dec 02
  IPR BCP document on technology sent to IETF Last Call
Jan 03
  IPR guidance document submitted to IESG for publication
Jan 03
  Conclude WG.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb (me)
		http://www.wilyhacker.com ("Firewalls" book)

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---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 16:13:48 -0400

Steve, I have several problems here.

> to make use of encumbered technology when it made sense to do so.

First of all I'd take out the statement about the "Tao", since one of
the things being addressed is how the "Tao" has changed in actual
practice.  Patented technology is a fact of life.  Just start with "We
can and do".

>         plan to document the running code of our process.

RFC 2026 still looks pretty good in what it covers.  The problem is what
it doesn't cover -- it doesn't give much guidance to working groups
about what to do at the beginning of the process.  The output of this
working group might not actually "update" 2026.  I'm thrashing around
over this but perhaps we could leave 2026 alone?  I suggest we produce
the informational document to start with, and then see how it interacts
with 2026 in order to better define and produce the first two.  

>         1.Document existing IPR practice in the IETF

This should be existing real practice, not something ideal and
theoretical.

>         outcome of the discussion of items identified in step 2.

..Scott

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 13:46:19 +0200

I very strongly concur with Scott. It's my view, and I'm not alone,
that there is no need whatever to update 2026. I believe the
only committed output should be an informational document (plus
a briefing presentation) that explains to non-lawyers what the very 
carefully written words in 2026 actually mean.

Also

> amend its charter to make it clear that it is changing the status quo.

Not acceptable. A change to the basic policy is not a WG choice; it is
so fundamental that it has to be an IETF choice. You can't casually throw
this in as a potential side-effect of a WG chartered principally to
document existing practice. I think the charter should say something like

 The working group is not chartered to propose substantive changes to the
 IPR policy described in RFC 2026.

   Brian

---

From: Jonathan Rosenberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2002 09:41:50 -0400

Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> so fundamental that it has to be an IETF choice. 

No doubt. But certainly it is reasonable for a working group to consider 
it, and document its recommendation for broader consideration by the 
IETF community? What other process would exist to change the policy? I 
for one do have some concerns about the current policy, and would like 
to allow for discussion of those issues and potential ways to deal with 
them.

-Jonathan R.

-- 
Jonathan D. Rosenberg, Ph.D.            72 Eagle Rock Avenue
Chief Scientist                         First Floor
dynamicsoft                             East Hanover, NJ 07936
[email-masked]                 FAX: (973) 952-5050
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http://www.dynamicsoft.com

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2002 16:59:02 +0200

--On 14. juni 2002 13:46 +0200 Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> 
wrote:

> document existing practice.

Brian,

I know we disagree on this point.

I see 3 possible scenarios:

- The IETF wishes to uphold existing practice, and the WG reflects that
- The IETF wishes to change existing practice for some reason, and the WG 
is able to reach consensus on a reasonable change to policy that reflects 
the desires of the IETF
- The IETF wishes to uphold existing practice, but the WG reaches consensus 
on an approach that does not reflect the desires of the IETF

The last one is worrisome. I *think* that in such a case, the documents 
would fail to rech consensus in the WG. But it would be a rough ride, and I 
woudl certainly try to avoid such a scenario.

Denying the possibility of the second smacks far too much of "the IESG does 
not wish to empower the membership to have a say in the rules at this time" 
for me.

Note also that the charter proposed currently does *not* allow a policy 
change - any policy change would require a recharter.
And a recharter is *always* possible, so mentioning it just makes it a 
little bit more explicit than usual.

                                 Harald

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 14:44:01 -0500

On 6/16/02 at 4:59 PM +0200, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:

>- The IETF wishes to change existing practice for some reason, and 
>the WG is able to reach consensus on a reasonable change to policy 
>that reflects the desires of the IETF
>- The IETF wishes to uphold existing practice, but the WG reaches 
>consensus on an approach that does not reflect the desires of the 
>IETF
>
>The last one is worrisome. I *think* that in such a case, the 
>documents would fail to rech consensus in the WG. But it would be a 
>rough ride, and I woudl certainly try to avoid such a scenario.

It seems to me that the WG should not go off to reach consensus on 
anything until at least a rough estimate of the IETF wishes are 
established. That would certainly avoid the last scenario completely. 
POIDED95's charter stated:

o The Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) section of RFC 1602 is 
widely seen as inoperative

That seems like a perfectly valid reason to start down the path of 
changing the rules. Perhaps the IETF thinks that current practice 
needs to be changed. I don't yet see evidence that this is true wrt 
2026, yet that seems to be what the proposed charter seems to be 
assuming.

>Denying the possibility of the second smacks far too much of "the 
>IESG does not wish to empower the membership to have a say in the 
>rules at this time" for me.

None of us has denied the possibility of the second; that's a straw 
man. The complaint is that the proposed charter may very well be 
assuming the inevitability of it.

And indeed, my complaint all along is that this whole endeavor smacks 
of "the IESG does not wish to empower the membership to have a say in 
*anything* at this time." It is the IESG that proposed this WG, it is 
the IESG that is proposing the charter, and it is the IESG that 
comprises the "design team" of the working group. When I asked about 
the content of the BOF session in Yokohama, it sounded to me like it 
was going to be a presentation with no input from the audience (and 
an agenda has yet to be posted). Given that it is the IESG that is 
going to approve the charter of the WG and decide on the merit of the 
output of the WG, this does seem like quite a bit of nonsense.

If the IESG wants to go off independently and make a statement about 
what they think should be done about IPR, fabulous; there's 
absolutely nothing wrong with that. If the IESG (or the IAB) wish to 
have an IPR workshop and document the output of that in an RFC, 
great. That sort of thing is done all of the time. If you want to 
have a closed WG where all of the work goes on in a design team, go 
to the IRTF. But using an IETF WG to do this seems like a misuse of 
the process.

Perhaps all of your motives are great. Your implementation so far has 
been pretty awful.

>Note also that the charter proposed currently does *not* allow a 
>policy change - any policy change would require a recharter.
>And a recharter is *always* possible, so mentioning it just makes it 
>a little bit more explicit than usual.

Actually, mentioning it is doing more than making it "a little bit 
more explicit"; it seems to be encouraging it. Working groups never 
seem to have any trouble coming up with new work items for 
themselves; the problem is usually keeping them from doing so. If 
anything needs to be more explicit in the charter, it is that the 
working group should not go in thinking that they're going to change 
policy. I concur with Scott that the working group should do the 
informational document first and then see where they are.

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