Pete,
Great points. However, information within the IETF is open to all entities.
Therefore, a person or corporation is bound by the by laws to allow their
information to be used towards the greater good of the InterNet and to that
end all standards / data or open to everyone!
JT
-----Original Message-----
From: pete(_at_)loshin(_dot_)com [mailto:pete(_at_)loshin(_dot_)com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 8:20 AM
To: ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: Can employers forbid you from talking about IETF activities?
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 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
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