Subject: Re: Righs in mailing list articles (Re: #1197 Re: ISSUES How IP is input and Intent...)

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2006 14:46:46 +0100

Harald is undoubtedly correct, and the Note Well text that you
often see, e.g. at http://www.ietf.org/maillist-new.html,
is very clear on this point.

     Brian

Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
> 
> 
> --On 20. februar 2006 10:10 +0100 Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
>>> Yes.  It's not exactly obvious for me how to interpret BCP 78
>>> wrt to mailing list articles and similar contributions, but I
>>> guess it does the right thing.
>>
>>
>> "IETF Contributions" include mailing list articles too.
>>
>> Making the IETF have rights to IETF posts may be a bit strange.  It
>> seems the IETF only need those rights for RFC documents.
> 
> 
> One reason why we have to have them is that in many cases, people will 
> send messages like "I think better text for section X would be...." - 
> and the editor will cut-and-paste that text into the document.
> 
> Unless the mailing list article is an "IETF contribution", the editor 
> would have to check with the sender that he gives permission to use his 
> words.
> 
> Keep It Simple.
> 
>                    Harald
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Ipr-wg mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg

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

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 08:10:42 -0800

Brian - in a legal sense when there are multiple interpretations obviously
available, generally the language is cleaned up unless what you are looking
for is a fight when someone tries to use those IP's...

----

As to NOTEWELL you folks couldn't be more wrong about the IETF's blanket
ownership of the IP under the words uttered through NOTEWELL. In fact it is
this lack of ownership that may impugn the use of NOTEWELL in anything.

This whole process is about capturing relevant communications that form part
of the formal vetting process, and as such provide the framework for
creating and managing the development of IP standards in the IETF, and to do
so without killing the owners of the IP.

Since with the NOTEWELL process what you have is stream of consciousness or
pertinent genesis in the NOTEWELL itself,  the comments of someone on a
mailing list are just that, comments on a mailing list, and not necessarily
a part of any standards initiative - so what determines and who (better yet)
determines what portions of the NOTEWELL records are property of the IETF or
part of any given initiative??? If the WG Chair is allowed to act as the
arbitrary editor "of the record" then what is the point?

more about the failure of the NOTEWELL design logic below:

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian E Carpenter" <[email-masked]>
To: "Harald Tveit Alvestrand" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "Frank Ellermann" <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>; "Simon
Josefsson" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 5:46 AM
Subject: Re: Rights in mailing list articles (Re: #1197 Re: ISSUES How IP is
input and Intent...)

> >> "IETF Contributions" include mailing list articles too.

They may not be able to do so, since those parties 'may clearly not own'
what they are talking about. The concept that the IETF holds IP rights to
conversations it is the genesis of is no problem, but if I open a convo in a
working group and discuss the price of bread at Safeway or  about an
anti-gravity solution I am working on outside the IETF - that doesnt mean
the IETF owns it.

Further, if someone else starts a convo about my antigravity solution in a
WG that even farther distances the ownership from that convo... meaning that
any group of people that dont hold the rights to something cannot convey
those to the IETF - which again is why in many instances NOTEWELL
will not work.

The convo may also have IP ramifications as well with regard to
non-disclosure, copyrights, derivative rights, or otherwise, and all that
which would need to be included. Seriously - the IETF's reprinting
commentary made in a public forum could also violate IP reproduction rules
if the person who uttered those words didnt own them or their source of
genesis.

So while NOTEWELL is a method of forcing the IETF to 'take notice of
something'. it is NOT a reliable process for conveying ownership of those
IP's discussed in the IETF's WG's or further licensing the IP for inclusion
inside the IETF

As to NOTEWELL, Its also interesting that NONE of the legal professional's
on this list have bothered to bring up this flaw in the IP casting through
the IETF's Processes,  even though an simpleton, no- a pre-law droid,  can
see NOTEWELL as what it is - a method of forcing un-owned or un-declared IP
into an IETF process... and as such it has this specific limitation.

> >> seems the IETF only need those rights for RFC documents

AMEN

> > and the editor will cut-and-paste that text into the document.

And in which case its the Initiatives requirement to have that transcribed
into the Initiatives workflows, and not that of the List Manager one would
think.

> > would have to check with the sender that he gives permission to use his

Again lets ask...
Then there is no such thing as NOTEWELL's being IETF property unless the
contributor re-grants the IETF ownership of those words? what happens when
that individual doesnt own those words to grant them to the IETF??? For
instance other GSO's activities do not come under IETF ownership unless we
reference them in our designs with their properly created derivative rights
uses...

> > Keep It Simple.

What a crock - Harald

You guys are driving this boat into "the sea of complexity" apparently to
prevent their being any workload on the back-end of the IETF's processes and
that is why all of this is broken.

In fact the whole point is that the original IETF doesnt really work anymore
because there is orders of magnitude more IP in play today, much of it
created here, but likewise, much of it created elsewhere and that now
impinges on development or the standards process in the IETF because the
process here refuses to take ownership of the IP dillemma without pasting
16K worth of boilerplate language on it to further confuse the issues.
While it was OK to ignore this in the early 90's it isnt anymore... those IP
owners want protection and if the Blackberry matter isnt enough for you to
know this, then what would be ???

The issues are simple
    1)    Who owns IP created in WG's from NOTEWELL Disclosures? - does the
IETF? what if it doesn't own the core idea being discussed.

    2)    Who makes a decision in any standards process what commentary in
the WG's operating history is a part of any given initiative? The WG
Chair? - the participants in the Vetting Process (whatever that is) or who?
and how is NOTEWELL formally included in any vetting processes' initiatives?

    3)    Who does the release verification on those words to make sure that
legally speaking that they can be included in IETF activities?