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Re: Can employers forbid you from talking about IETF activities?

2001-05-30 09:00:03
Pete:

Since, I think, you post this due to my deferment
to the cisco PR folks let me put a few words in my
defense...

1) I always try to be helpful with technical questions. You 
   can look at both the sigtran and tsvwg archives to see that
   I try to respond both publicly and privately on technical 
   questions.

2) My employer has a policy that PR must clear interviews. They,
   to my knowledge, are very very fair and work real hard with
   the interviewer to make sure that they can meet their schedule.
   I did not push you off to the cisco PR folks thinking you
   would go away... instead I thought that the good folks at
   Cisco PR would quickly put us together in time for you
   to meet your week-end deadline. I can only assume since 
   your contact email came last night and Cisco PR in S.J. is
   just getting in, that you have not tried to contact them... please
   do so, I think you will be surprised at how good they are
   to deal with..

3) You contacted me at my Cisco address (email wise). This makes
   it (to me) a formal contact through my employer. You will note
   that a LOT of my email comes from my home email address. This is
   due to the fact that I do try to separate the two... However that
being
   said, cisco does let me work on IETF standards has part of my job..
and they
   DO NOT specify which direction I should push/point on any issue. They
   are most excellent in letting me determine this... I am really quite
   impressed with how the company operates.. it seems to value technical
   correctness... I like that... 

4) I feel it is my obligation, as an employee, to honor Cisco's policies
   on PR and press relations. I realize this is my interpretation of
   their policies and I may even be going over-board with deferring
   you to PR.. but I like to error on the side of caution. Besides which
   in all my past dealings with Cisco PR, they are quite helpful and
   work hard at getting the interviewer what they need.

I would encourage you to please contact cisco PR and I think
you will find they will be most cooperative with you on getting
you in contact with me...


Regards

R
pete(_at_)loshin(_dot_)com wrote:

I write about IETF-related topics for a number of publications and websites.
Most IETF participants are incredibly helpful and responsive when I ask them
questions about the work they are doing, particularly authors of RFCs and 
I-Ds.

However, there are (infrequent) exceptions, usually employees of large
companies who believe that their contracts forbid them from speaking to the
press, under any circumstances. These folks usually say something like, "My
company won't allow me to say anything about the RFC I wrote" and refer me to
their public relations staff.

RFC 2418, "IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures", states:

   Participation is by individual technical contributors, rather than by
   formal representatives of organizations.

I take that to mean that IETF activities are separate from employment
activities.

Further, as an open organization, IETF activities are not supposed to come
under non-disclosure agreements or receive intellectual property protections.
So there should be no reason why an individual could not talk about what he or
she does within the IETF.

As IETF standards track specifications continue to gain importance to the
world at large, IETF participants need to understand their obligations and
rights to discuss these activities with outsiders--whether from the business
world, the academic world, or "the media".

The alternative, IMO, is to have IETF participants who are employed by
industry companies such as Cisco and Microsoft viewed as official
representatives of their companies rather than as individual (and independent)
participants.

Please discuss.

-pl

--
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Loshin             http://www.loshin.com               |
| pete(_at_)loshin(_dot_)com         +1 781/646-6318                     |
|                                                             |
| Senior Editor-at-Large  Information Security Magazine       |
|                         http://www.infosecuritymag.com      |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

-- 
Randall R. Stewart
randall(_at_)stewart(_dot_)chicago(_dot_)il(_dot_)us or rrs(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com
815-342-5222 (cell) 815-477-2127 (work)