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Re: Forthcoming draft: draft-farrresnickel-ipr-sanctions

2012-01-26 19:20:17


On 1/26/2012 3:35 PM, Richard L. Barnes wrote:
I appreciate that there need to be disincentives to infringing the IPR policy, but I'm a 
little wary of the idea of codifying a system of sanctions.  Mainly for the sorts of 
"gaming the system" thinking they engender:


It is likely that we have already been seeing gaming by organizations. More than once and by more than one.

The reality is that people and companies that want to find ways to work around barriers they don't like will do that. The belief that codification encourages this is, I believe, without empirical basis.[1] What /is/ empirically demonstrated is that the IETF is in a poor position with respect to such actions that run contrary to our culture.

The IETF currently relies on a bit of mythology that worked well 20 years ago but is very skewed with respect to reality today. The core of that mythology concerns individual contribution and it's important that we keep it, for all sorts of reasons.

What I believe is /not/ worth keeping -- and which we have already made piecemeal concessions to -- is that corporations in fact /do/ participate in the IETF and need to be treated as responsible participants. (Note that the word responsible, here, has two interpretations. I mean both of them.)

Organizations that do not adapt to a changed world experience the same fate as species that don't adapt.

The fear about codification that /does/ make sense to me is in making rules that are superficial, overly detailed, misdirected, excessively rigid, or the like. In other words, yes, we need to make changes carefully. We need to formulate clear principles, proper procedures, adequate mechanisms for exceptions, etc., etc.

d/

--

  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net
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