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Re: Last Call on draft-bradner-rfc3979bis-08.txt ("Intellectual Property Rights in IETF Technology")

2016-04-03 09:33:36
Hi,



On 4/2/16, 21:59, "ietf on behalf of Brian E Carpenter" 
<ietf-bounces(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org on behalf of 
brian(_dot_)e(_dot_)carpenter(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:

Alissa,
On 01/04/2016 11:38, Alissa Cooper wrote:
...
1) I agree with other commenters' concerns about the definition of 
"participating" with respect to WG chairs and ADs. In particular in the 
context of section 6, this seems like it could limit the pool of people who 
can stand for AD roles, because you're not allowed to participate in cases 
where you won't be able to disclose, but you have no idea a priori what WGs 
will get chartered in your area and what work items they might take up.

I don't see what's new about this - it's always been an awkward point. I 
worked for
a major patent-generating company while I was in the IESG ten years ago, and I 
had
to pay attention to this. I'm not saying it isn't a problem, but I don't see 
that
tightening up the language really makes the problem any worse. (However, I 
still
don't see any need to state the obvious, i.e. that WG Chairs and ADs are
participants, unless they recuse themselves on a particular matter.)

My feeling is that a WG chair absolutely should be in the loop of everything 
going on in its WG, and therefore should be viewed as “participating” with 
respect to any Contribution made to the WG or related to the WG.

With respect to ADs, I find Brian’s argument generally compelling.  However, I 
don’t know how an AD can or should recuse himself/herself from a particular 
matter in the sense of shedding his/her possible obligations under BCP79.  
AFAICT, historically, when an AD recuses himself/herself, it was often based on 
too much knowledge and interest in a certain technology, with respect to 
personnel behind the technology, and so on.  In such a case, a recuse from IPR 
obligations of any type would not be desirable.  The more we relax the 
disclosure requirements, the more we enable gaming the policy by a “company 
man”--and that form of gaming may not come up until years after the person has 
resigned from the AD position, rendering the IETF’s internal sanction mechanism 
inefficient.

Stephan


   Brian