Re: IPR Questions Raised by Sam Hartman at the IETF 73 Plenarys

[Dave CROCKER <dhc2 at dcrocker.net>]

Contreras, Jorge wrote:
> The problem lies with collective works, rather than joint works.  In
> some cases, the multiple authors of IETF documents have each made
> distinct contributions (i.e., sections or distinct text) rather than
> collaborating to produce joint text.  Unfortunately it is not possible,
> in hindight, to determine whether works with multiple authors are joint
> works or collective works.  


Ignoring independent submissions, how is this distinction meaningful when the 
authors are operating as agents of an IETF working group?

For any IETF document, the fact that someone took lead on a particular bit of 
text makes it easy to miss the fact that authors *must* (and do) make 
modifications at the will of the working group.  By the time a working group 
document is issued, it has been massively changed in many small and large ways, 
according to tidbits of input from many different people.

Most standards groups do not assign author names to the document, possibly for 
this reason.

In the IETF, we've found listing the names of the primary contributors as 
useful, but I think that here it has resulted in a misleading view of who has 
been in control of the text.

d/

--

  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf at ietf.org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf