--On Tuesday, August 06, 2013 02:06 +0100 Stephen Farrell
<stephen(_dot_)farrell(_at_)cs(_dot_)tcd(_dot_)ie> wrote:
...
On 08/05/2013 06:38 PM, John C Klensin wrote:
The reasons to discourage anonymity aren't just "patent
nonsense" (although that should be sufficient and I rather
like the pun).
Thanks. The pun was accidental as it happens, but I did leave
it in after I spotted it :-)
Puns aside, its an important point. Most patents are nonsense
(in terms of being really inventive) and we shouldn't base
our processes anywhere near primarily on the existence of that
nonsense.
Agreed, modulo observations about how much time we seem to put
into fine-tuning IPR policies and devising threats to make to
those who don't seem inclined to comply.
Despite all we say and believe about individual
participation, the IETF has a legitimate need to understand
the difference between comments on a specification from an
audience with diverse perspectives and organized campaigns or
a loud minority with a shared perspective.
Good point. We have similar issues with folks who do lots of
contract work I guess. But, IMO we should first make sure we
can hear the good points that are to be made, and only then
modulate our reactions to those in terms of who-pays-whom or
whatever.
Indeed.
Put another way, regardless of patents or who's paying, if
someone (even anonymously) comes up with a really good
technical point, then we do have to pay attention. But I think
we do do that.
When, as you indirectly point out, we can "hear" them.
In contrast, I think the real challenge remote participants
face is being heard. And when/if we solve that problem, I
suspect that remote participants with bad ideas will be a far
worse problem than those who'd like to submarine a patent or
further a subtle corporate agenda.
Of course, that is also true of participants who show up and
more f2f meetings.
So again that leads me back to trying to encourage folks to
just make the tools better for us all and to only then try
figure out how we need to manage that. Perhaps Hadriel's
anecdote above means that how we use jabber is, after about a
decade, now mature enough that we ought think more about how
we formalise its use. I'm ok with waiting another longish time
before even thinking about how to do the same with successful
inbound audio for example.
I'm actually not a big fan of inbound audio, at least not yet.
It is subject to the same technical and operational issues that
make outbound audio fragile, including the difficulties of clear
and "standard" pronunciation plus the same "how to raise your
hand, get in line, or otherwise ask for the floor" issues that
Jabber does. But, if we are going to rely on Jabber for input,
we need to move toward treating it as a source of input with the
same priority as those in the room (and relatively more real
time), not something that is a nice-to-have when it happens to
work.
best,
john