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Re: recourse if our rules are violated?



John - let me push back with responses to the killer points you brought up...


There is Much Much More inline below.

Todd

----- Original Message ----- From: "John C Klensin" <john-ietf at jck.com>
To: "Scott W Brim" <sbrim at cisco.com>; "Brian E Carpenter" <brc at zurich.ibm.com>
Cc: "Frank Ellermann" <nobody at xyzzy.claranet.de>; <ipr-wg at ietf.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 7:20 AM
Subject: Re: recourse if our rules are violated?





--On Thursday, 12 April, 2007 05:29 -0400 Scott W Brim
<sbrim at cisco.com> wrote:

On 04/12/2007 03:56 AM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:

"An approved standards track RFC identified to specify
'patented' technology after its approval, where contributors
 neglected their duties to disclose IPR under BCP 79, MAY be
 removed from standards track, if there's no IETF consensus
 for a different approach."

Why would we write that down, when it's already true? I believe this is well within the IESG's power under RFC 2026.

I tend to agree. Consider ... If an IPR disclosure glitch is discovered for an RFC, there needs to be IETF consensus on what to do with it, where removing it from standards track is one option. The obvious first step in IETF consensus is Working Group reevaluation. When they are done there can be an IETF last call on their decision, but their decision could be anything at all. I seem to recall that we have done this with other RFCs based on other discoveries not related to IPR.

The procedure described here is already in place in 2026.  If a
problem is discovered with something that's standards track,
the WG will consider how to revise it, where the "revision"
may be a new RFC to replace it (in which case it is moved to
different status, even Historic).

No... The WG's do not get to ramdomly decide that they want to ignore the rules that pertain to everyone else.



So if you want to add a new sentence, it should not be about procedure, since we already have all the procedure we need. What is special here is the particular reason for invoking that process. If you want to add a sentence, I would just note that one possible reason for a major revision or replacement of a standards track document would be discovery of new IPR claims against it.

Let me slightly disagree by asking some questions whose answers really push the boundaries of existing documented procedures. First we have no mechanism for forcing the review that we seem to all agree is possible and appropriate. Is that review automatic?

It should be.

Does it require AD (or WG) approval to initiate it?

No, it shouldnt. The process should automatically trigger when anyone sends a notice to the IPR Desk that there are IPR Concerns with any endeavor that they are a part of, and their participation in that effort gives them that right since there is cost to them for that particapation.


Does it require some sort of community consensus to start the
review process?

Again - NO - this is not about Community Concensus, its about a process that remains the same for each and every circumstance its applied to.


Could an AD who some might suspect of having
other motives block such a review (at least absent an appeal)?

Yes, as can a WG by simply flodding that WG with voices saying "nay", which is why this is a mechanical procedural kinda thang, its not optional and should just happen when any IPR issue comes up.


Further NO initiaive should progress from its last-stable state until those IPR issues are resolved once an IPR-Disclosure Request is submitted to those working on the Endeavor/Initiative.

(BTW - this is a new idea "An IPR Disclosure Request" would be a request from some part/party involved in the WG hosting the vetting of some Initiative, to those who submitted that Initiative to formally document and disclose any and all IPR issues therein. I think the failure to do so possibly also would constitute an "Act of Fraud" if it was not complied with since those individuals hiding those IPR issues would be in effect stealing engineering and professional services from the WG's Members and their Sponsors therein.)


And can the review, or the IESG in response to a review, do something unusual, such as moving an existing, published, standards-track RFC to some other category (not necessarily only Historic) while a replacement RFC is being developed, moved toward consensus, and published?

If it cant then there is no recourse therein for IPR issue claims.

It might be much easier (and
lots quicker) for the community to reach the conclusion "given
those encumbrances, this document is not suitable for the
standards track" than to develop a replacement RFC.

The problem is the term "Community". This is a structure and process issue and not something for Community Concensus.


If the
conclusion is that one --or the presumably more extreme "this
never would have been standardized and might not even have been
published, had the encumbrance been known"-- do we really want
to leave the document on the standards track until a replacement
makes it way through the works?

   john


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