I've filed a number of drafts where I didn't know at filing time what
addresses my co-authors wanted to have on the draft (deadlines again).
That said, it seems that a button called "BLANK THIS DRAFT" which was
available to co-authors and filed a -01 with "THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY
LEFT BLANK" as its only content (after approval) might adequately solve
the problem without the need to modify our main workflows...
Den 21. april 2015 15:05, skrev Stewart Bryant:
On 21/04/2015 10:46, Fred Baker (fred) wrote:
I’m not sure what list this question belongs on, so I’m bringing it
here. Happy to be redirected.
I have had a problem on a number of occasions with my name being
listed as an author on a draft that I had not agreed to co-author, and
in some cases, that I hadn’t even seen. In most cases, I have been
able to get the putative co-author to remove my name in a -01 version.
I can point to at least one draft that I didn’t initially agree to
co-author, was unsuccessful in getting my "co-authors" to remove it,
and wound up largely re-writing, which involved a lot of work. I’m not
alone in this; various people have complained of third parties listing
them as co-authors on drafts without their consent.
I’m bringing it up this time on the behalf of some Cisco colleagues,
who found themselves "co-authoring" a draft that they didn’t know
anything about in one working group, got their names off the draft,
and then discovered their names on a related draft in another working
group. It seems to me that an ethical line was crossed in the interest
of showing support for a concept.
First, I’d like to believe that this isn’t an acceptable practice. I’d
like to believe, shock of shocks, that a co-author is first someone
that has agreed to co-author, and is someone that has text or at least
concepts that are included in the draft.
Second, I wonder if there is a way we can manage this. A simple
approach would involve the posting tool. When we ask to post
something, the authors are polled in email to ensure that the email
address in the draft actually gets to them, and they have to reply
either in email or on the web. What would it take to, when posting a
-00 draft, require all of the co-authors to positively respond, and
have the posting fail if they don’t, or if any responds negatively?
This would also clear out people whose addresses change; I understand
an address changing in a later version of a draft
(someone(_at_)example1(_dot_)com becomes
someone+else(_at_)example2(_dot_)com) and being
missed in a draft update, but I don’t understand an incorrect address
on the -00 version.
Having all authors authorize would be a good idea not only for the reason
you state but to stop some form of IPR ambush where you acquire liabilities
because you were once an author.
However getting drafts out before IETF is hard enough so pre-authorization
would need to be supported.
- Stewart