I've been doing some more thinking about this, and I have received
quite a bit of private feedback about my previous comments, ranging
from "don't be so picky, let these guys do their thankless job" to
"please be more picky, this is the thin end of the wedge."
So - this isn't really about being picky, except that a legal agreement
more or less forces us to be picky. Also, I appreciate as much as anybody
that the Trustees are doing a thankless job for the benefit of the
community. But if we look at the three issues together, we have to
also consider *why* the Trust was created in the first place. My summary:
it was created to ensure that the intellectual property important for the
openness of Internet standards could never be alienated or altered
except for the benefit of the community.
I can understand why, in certain circumstances, the community might
agree that some physical property, such as a worn-out pencil sharpener,
should be disposed of, or that a specific piece of intellectual property
might be agreed by the community to no longer important and therefore
could be released by the Trust. The first case is pretty easy and I think
we *could* give the Trustees the authority to dispose of useless
physical property. Intellectual property is much harder, because who
is to judge what's important?
We might reach consensus that it's OK to release change control over
the Tao (although I'm not sure I agree with that - what's so hard about
keeping it under an RFC-like license?). We probably wouldn't reach
consensus to release change control over RFC 791. But who would care
to write down legally sound text drawing the line between those two
extremes?
A couple more comments in line...
On 09/08/2013 07:47, Chris Griffiths wrote:
On Aug 8, 2013, at 5:42 AM, t.p. <daedulus(_at_)btconnect(_dot_)com> wrote:
Chris
I would not like to see the Trust Agreement change to accommodate issues
one or two - I think that the agreement got that one right.
As I said, if the Trust has a worn-out piece of equipment, they should
be able to dispose of it. But this dilemma can be avoided by not
acquiring equipment at all.
Thank you for this feedback.
Three is different. The Trust ought to be able to dispose of rights
that are not needed, never will be and are costing money. But how can
that be expressed without giving carte blanche to dispose of everything,
for whatever purposes? We need a proposal as to how that line would be
drawn - I do not have any sound ideas on this.
I think providing thoughtful language around seeking community feedback and
requiring time frames to dispose of items would be needed in this case.
I note that the Trust Agreement does not explicitly recognise that the
Trustees should follow BCP 101, including aspects such as:
"To ensure that the IASA is run in a transparent and accountable manner."
"the IAOC and IAD
will ensure that guidelines are developed for regular operational
decision making. Where appropriate, these guidelines should be
developed with public input. In all cases, they must be made public"
If we're going to add something about community feedback to the Trust Agreement
it should probably be more general rather than just for the specific
matter of asset disposal. It's always been understood that the transparency
requirement for the IAOC also applies to the Trust, but to my surprise we
never wrote it down.
Can you indicate what annual or one-off costs we are talking about? The
domain names I have dealt with have been cheap enough not to be
concerned about, once I found the best way to deal with them, although I
understand that the IETF is operating in a different realm and so may
have costs of a different magnitude.
I agree some domains are not very expensive, however trademarks require legal
work for registering and filing for them. While not huge numbers, we want to
raise the issue that keeping these items requires overhead and expense that
seems to not be warranted in some cases, and we want to discussed and get
feedback on if keeping these and paying for them makes sense.
There's also the issue that (as I understand it) specific marks like "IETF
Secretariat" may be easier to defend than a more generic mark like plain "IETF".
IANAL.
Brian
Thanks
Tom Petch
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Griffiths" <cgriffiths(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com>
To: <ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Sent: Saturday, August 03, 2013 7:48 AM
IETF Community,
The IETF Trust Trustees would like feedback from the community on
several issues:
- We have received requests that we cannot accommodate and have
consulted legal counsel to review our options
- The trust agreement does not allow the trustees to effectively manage
some trust assets
The Trust was created in December 2005 by the Internet Society and the
Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) for the purpose of
"the advancement of education and public interest by acquiring, holding,
maintaining and licensing certain existing and future intellectual
property and other property used in connection with the Internet
standards process and its administration, for the advancement of the
science and technology associated with the Internet and related
technology."
<http://trustee.ietf.org/docs/IETF-Trust-Agreement-Executed-12-15-05.pdf
Issue 1
We have recently been asked permission to republish the TAO with a
creative commons license, but according to counsel, the current trust
agreement does not give the trustees the rights to do this.
- Without specific language being added to the trust agreement, we
cannot grant these types of requests.
- The current open request for a creative commons license from 6/18/2013
cannot be completed.
Issue 2
We cannot currently accept physical assets like hardware donations into
the trust. Once accepted into the trust, we would be unable to dispose
of these items in the future if they are identified as no longer being
needed.
- This removes flexibility in managing assets in the trust, and we
currently use alternative methods of accepting donations outside of the
trust.
Issue 3
Once a domain name or trademark is registered by the trust, it cannot be
abandoned even if it is no longer needed.
- We must maintain these in perpetuity based on legal counsel review of
the current language
You can also find the latest trust report that covers these items and
was presented at the IETF 87 plenary here:
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/87/slides/slides-87-iesg-opsplenary-4
Thank you and we look forward to getting your feedback.
Chris Griffiths
Chair, IETF Trust