[cabfpub] Reposting on behalf of others

Ryan Sleevi sleevi at google.com
Mon Mar 2 11:52:29 MST 2015


On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 10:37 AM, kirk_hall at trendmicro.com <
kirk_hall at trendmicro.com> wrote:

>  Agreed.  So how would you propose we change our bylaws so we can hear
> from people like Julien?  Would you support an amendment that lets Members
> repost messages (with permission) that are sent to the Questions@ email
> address if they think the messages are valid and significant?  Or maybe we
> create a new email address Comments@ as a public list-serv, and any
> Member can repost messages that the Member thinks are worthy of
> consideration by the Members as a whole.
>

I think both of these suffer from the IPR concerns that lead to the
creation of an IPR policy to begin with.

I strongly dislike the proposals that rely on "as the member sees fit" -
that sets up a rather arbitrary process. As I've suggested, if such a
proposal were adopted, I would happily forward any and all messages to the
public list, in the spirit of openness, which I think is precisely what
some members would prefer to avoid.

Given that first and foremost we must lie in the bed we made and comply
with the IPR policy that was duly ratified by the Forum, I don't think
member discretion works. If we say it can only be members of the public who
have executed the IPR agreement, than I can think of quite a few people who
would have tremendously useful contributions to make, but for whom the IPR
policy, as written, is too burdensome.

The first step towards allowing public participation would seem to be to
clarify the IPR policy protections. Consider (in addition to the IETF Note
Well) how the W3C considers contributions from the public -
http://www.w3.org/2003/12/22-pp-faq.html#non-participants . Of course, this
was rejected during our IPR policy deliberations.

On Eddy’s point – I’m less worried about flame wars if we separate out
> public postings from Member postings (so the Member postings don’t get
> submerged).
>

>
> We clearly don’t want to block helpful and meaningful emails like
> Julien’s, as there is clearly information out there that can help us make
> good decisions.
>

With no disrespect to Julien, there was no new information there. There was
only a rehash of past discussions, many on points that you yourself had
raised and been addressed. Now, I'm certainly in favour of provide
clarification and always happy to explain further, but if your fear is
submerging members emails or overwhelming the membership, then I think your
reposting contributed more to that than perhaps realized.
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