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Re: Problem with new Note Well

2014-01-27 09:46:20


--On Friday, 24 January, 2014 15:03 -0600 Mary Barnes
<mary(_dot_)ietf(_dot_)barnes(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:

...
[MB] As a chair, I would not be reading the statement out
loud. As far as I'm concerned, my responsibility as a chair is
to make sure everyone in the room is aware of the IETF IPR
rules - it's not up to me to summarize them for the group.

For both this new statement and its predecessors, it seems to me
that we have to recognize the limitations of what we are trying
to do and think about and balance policy plans accordingly.   If
your "responsibility as a chair is to make sure everyone in the
room is aware..." then you need to repeat the announcement every
time someone walks into the room who wasn't there when you made
your check, showed your slides, or did your reading.  Unless we
are going to take to locking doors so that no one can enter a WG
meeting after the "Note Well" announcement is made, such
repetition would be disruptive and absurd.  

Similarly, if one were really inclined to "make sure", the right
way to do it would be to ask at the beginning of the session for
everyone who was familiar with the IPR policies to put up their
hands, ask everyone else to leave, and then take pictures of
everyone who was left for later correlation with the blue
sheets.  But that is almost equally absurd and the community has
been fairly clear about its distaste for pictures that can be
correlated with names.

Given our registration procedures, we could take the possession
of a badge as evidence that someone had been adequately exposed
to the Note Well (if not actually to the BCP) and arrange to
check for badges at meeting room doors.  But we've decided, IMO,
for good reason, to not do that either.


And, saying go read the details "if you're worried" isn't
sufficient.  Everyone should have read the documents in detail
and make sure that anyone that has a say on how they disclose
and deal with IPR in IETF (i.e., corporate lawyers) are aware
of IETF policy.  [/MB]

Yes.  But "the documents" there are BCP 79 (and probably BCP 78
and various Trust policies) and not some summary.  And, no
matter how much it might make those who are IPR-fascinated
happy, as a WG participant and sometime chair, I don't want
people spending time in WG meetings trying to decipher BCP79 and
its implications (or bringing their lawyers with them to do so)
any more than I want them buried in email -- I want them paying
attention to the meeting, else why are they present.  

For someone (and their organizations if relevant) who is
adequately familiar with BCP 79 before walking into the WG
meeting, further announcements, regardless of their precise
content, are a waste of time except maybe as a small reminder.
For anyone who isn't, the announcements are useless unless we
are just trying to tell them that they might be in big trouble
if they stay in the room.

best,
   john