On Wed, 13 Aug 2008, Simon Josefsson wrote:
Harald Alvestrand <harald(_at_)alvestrand(_dot_)no> writes:
Simon Josefsson wrote:
Harald Alvestrand <harald(_at_)alvestrand(_dot_)no> writes:
At least one of the removed patent licenses promises to make available
patent licenses on fair, reasonable, reciprocal and non-discriminatory
terms. It seems unfortunate that IETF allows organizations to file such
claims and permits them be removed later, presumably when the
organization change their minds.
Agreed in principle.
On the other hand (trying to play devil's advocate), if the promise
was made by someone in the organization that did not have authority to
commit the organization to that statement, I could see why the
responsible persons for that organization would want the original
statement made invisible, so as to not have to eternally go around and
explain the situation.....
Removal by the IETF seems to be agreement to release the promisor from
the agreement. The IETF shouldn't do this since the agreement was a
condition on which the WG made its decision.
In the case that the organization doesn't have authority to make the
promise, it shouldn't make false promises and is responsible for
whatever consequences befall it as a result. These consequences are not
the concern of the IETF. All the IETF should do is allow the company to
update the disclosures to state that it can't honor the commitment it
made previously. This is consistent with 'record is history' view.
What if the request to remove the disclosure was filed by someone who
isn't authorized to do it?
Good point.
If the IETF removes patent disclosures, I believe the IETF will find
itself in the position of evaluating the _correctness_ of patent related
claims. This seems like the wrong approach.
One way to mitigate your problem without getting into evaluating
correctness or removing disclosures would be to collect all patent
disclosures updates on the same page as the original patent disclosure,
and sort the entries in reverse calendar order. Then anyone can add
note that a disclosure below was filed without authority. That
disclosure can be evaluated for correctness the same way that other
disclosures can be evaluated. Removing disclosures makes it impossible
for IETF participants to evaluate the contents for themselves.
This is how I thought it worked now, perhaps with the exception of
sorting by date. I think they are sorted by number (or maybe this is
just the natural order), and higher numbers generally have later dates.
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