Subject: Random question: OK formats for emailed IPR statements?

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 16:22:21 -0800

Hi,

I got a query about IPR statements and how to submit them.

The secretariat is working on some stuff to make it easier to send in IPR 
statements via a Web form. But some people have told me they really don't 
like Web forms, and would prefer email.

But in order to get all the info that is required for good searching (draft 
name, WG name, IPR owner and so on), we'd like to use a form for that too.

One suggestion is, of course, an ASCII form.

Another (which I didn't think of myself) is a PDF form. These can be saved 
and mailed.

Free text is of course always an option, but it's quite labor-intensive to 
try to extract all the needed info out of it, so we'd like to not encourage 
people to do that, if at all possible.

What do people think?

               Harald

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Ipr-wg mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg

---

From: Marc Blanchet <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 21:42:33 -0500

ascii.

Marc.

-- Tuesday, January 27, 2004 16:22:21 -0800 Harald Tveit Alvestrand
<[email-masked]> wrote/a ecrit:

> But in order to get all the info that is required for good searching
> (draft name, WG name, IPR owner and so on), we'd like to use a form for
> that too.
> 
> Another (which I didn't think of myself) is a PDF form. These can be
> saved and mailed.
> 
> Free text is of course always an option, but it's quite labor-intensive
> to try to extract all the needed info out of it, so we'd like to not
> encourage people to do that, if at all possible.
> 
> What do people think?
> 
>                Harald
> 
> 

------------------------------------------
Marc Blanchet
Hexago
tel: +1-418-266-5533x225
------------------------------------------
http://www.freenet6.net: IPv6 connectivity
------------------------------------------

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From: Marc Blanchet <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 22:04:30 -0500

> ascii.

and you will receive them filled in a Word document... ;-)))

Marc.

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 00:07:52 -0500

Mumble.

We want the bulk of the information in a form that is searchable and 
platform-independent, which basically narrows it down to ASCII and HTML 
and maybe XML.  I would recommend that we only accept ASCII, except 
that some people don't even know what that is, and a lot of word 
processor programs produce readable HTML more readily than they produce 
readable ASCII.

PDF isn't necessarily searchable (think of PDF documents that are just 
scanned images or converted from PostScript in such a way that the 
original text isn't really intact).

I wonder if the problem with web forms is that it's too much of a pain 
to type in a significant amount of text in a TEXTAREA input item in a 
web browser.  Would it work to have a web form with a few blanks for 
IPR owner, draft name, WG name, and then have them submit an ASCII or 
HTML file for the rest?

(and then the submission process should check to make sure the document 
really is ASCII or HTML and not PDF or MS-Word or PowerPoint or Satan 
knows what.)

Also, if we're going to put this stuff on web pages it's important that 
we filter and reject anything that might compromise the reader's system 
- which means no external images or objects that only get referenced 
when viewed, no scripts, and no executable content.

> The secretariat is working on some stuff to make it easier to send in 
> IPR statements via a Web form. But some people have told me they 
> really don't like Web forms, and would prefer email.
>
> (draft name, WG name, IPR owner and so on), we'd like to use a form 
> for that too.
>
> Free text is of course always an option, but it's quite 
> labor-intensive to try to extract all the needed info out of it, so 
> we'd like to not encourage people to do that, if at all possible.
>
> What do people think?

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 21:22:14 -0800

--On 28. januar 2004 00:07 -0500 Keith Moore <[email-masked]> wrote:

> and maybe XML.  I would recommend that we only accept ASCII, except that
> some people don't even know what that is, and a lot of word processor
> programs produce readable HTML more readily than they produce readable
> ASCII.
>

the version that appears reasonable is to have a PDF file that contains a 
form, which the user can download, fill out, save and send back. Just 
letting the filer generate random PDF doesn't seem helpful.

The reason to not go wholly webform is that some IPR owners would like to 
link the IPR submission process into their own IT systems - and filling out 
someone else's webform using a client-side script is an error-prone 
business.

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 00:57:45 -0500

> the version that appears reasonable is to have a PDF file that 
> contains a form, which the user can download, fill out, save and send 
> back. Just letting the filer generate random PDF doesn't seem helpful.

that's fine, but I wouldn't want to rely on it exclusively.  
forms-capable PDF viewers aren't available on all platforms.

OTOH, I see nothing wrong with offering alternative ways to provide the 
same input.  webform, PDF form, XML could all map to a common format on 
the back end.  my only question would be whether there is a need for a 
nontrivial amount of "plain text" description of the nature of the IPR 
impact, and whether there is therefore a need to accept text documents 
in addition to the form data.

---

From: Pekka Savola <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 08:35:10 +0200 (EET)

> someone else's webform using a client-side script is an error-prone 

If this is the approach, I'm not sure if we know the problem ("why is 
web form not OK?") well enough yet.

Filling out a PDF form is equally frustrating as willing out a form in
the website (I think).

However, you can proof-read and store the PDF better in your internal 
systems, if you prefer.

So what the web form seems to be lacking is a "preview" functionality 
(before submitting the declaration), and a suggestion to print out the 
result.

-- 
Pekka Savola                 "You each name yourselves king, yet the
Netcore Oy                    kingdom bleeds."
Systems. Networks. Security. -- George R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 08:11:55 -0500

> Another (which I didn't think of myself) is a PDF form. These can be saved 

That gives you nothing over ascii.  If these are the two choices, ascii
it is.  However ...

> someone else's webform using a client-side script is an error-prone 

The right answer here is something based on XML and SOAP.  For the near
term it's a lot easier to generate some plaintext from one's "IT system"
than PDF.

swb

---

From: "Bob Wyman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 11:55:19 -0500

The best solution would be to specify an XML format for these
statements. This format should be independent of the process for
delivery or generation of the XML encoded statements. Use of webforms,
REST, XMLRPC, Email, SOAP, XMPP, etc. should all result in delivery of
the same data -- an XML encoded <ipr-statement>. Thus, there would be
at least two specifications that need to be defined here:
	1. XML Schema for <ipr-statement>
	2. Specification of one of more delivery mechanisms.

	Ideally, new disclosures, when received, would be made
available immediately via insertion into an Atom feed. This would
allow other (non-IETF) information providers and intermediaries as
well as personal news aggregators to discover the new ipr-statements
and process them appropriately.
	The submission of "legal" documents via XML has been very
successfully proven to be useful in at least the US SEC Edgar system.
If the government can make this work, I am assuming it shouldn't be
too hard for the IETF to make a go of it...

		bob wyman

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf
Of Harald Tveit Alvestrand
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 7:22 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Random question: OK formats for emailed IPR statements?

Hi,

The secretariat is working on some stuff to make it easier to send in
IPR 
statements via a Web form. But some people have told me they really
don't 
like Web forms, and would prefer email.

But in order to get all the info that is required for good searching
(draft 
name, WG name, IPR owner and so on), we'd like to use a form for that
too.

saved 
and mailed.

Free text is of course always an option, but it's quite
labor-intensive to 
try to extract all the needed info out of it, so we'd like to not
encourage 
people to do that, if at all possible.

What do people think?

               Harald