[cabfpub] Reposting on behalf of others

Ryan Sleevi sleevi at google.com
Mon Mar 2 17:35:43 UTC 2015


On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 9:10 AM, kirk_hall at trendmicro.com <
kirk_hall at trendmicro.com> wrote:

> Ryan and Gerv -- people on this list have reposted helpful messages sent
> to the Questions list in the past, so this was not different.  Adrien's
> information was extremely helpful as I'm sure you agree, and it's a shame
> we didn't have his information during the ballot.  As you know, Julien also
> signed our IP agreement before his postings.  What exactly is your
> objection to hearing from him?
>

And I've raised similar concerns in the past, and declined to repost on
behalf of people who could have made significant contributions to
discussions, precisely because our bylaws state what the criteria are for
participation on the public list.

I'm aware Adrien signed the IPR, which is why I asked you to clarify
whether they were now invited as an Interested Party. If not, it seems
inappropriate to repost the messages. If so, great, but it would help from
a process point to clarify that. Historically, we've not confirmed someone
as an Interested Party until a telecon, but that's not spelled out in the
bylaws. If this is a change in process, it's just good to be explicit and
document it as such.


> As you know, we don't have a fully public list for posting comments partly
> because no one on the Forum wants to moderate such a list, and in part
> because several of us don't want our list to be like other lists in this
> area where some use their postings to flame others, some get stuck on pet
> issues, etc.


I think it's clear that even the membership as it stands can get quite
stuck on pet issues. More importantly, however, that's not how this has
been presented in the past.

It was precisely because of the IPR protections - ensuring that any
contributions that may eventually make their way into a work product of the
CA/B Forum are known and documented. Otherwise, it would have been far
easier to optimize for openness and public participation, and only if and
when it became an issue to look towards moderation.


>   Maybe the best way to strike a balance is to have a "wiki" style public
> list -- if any CABF member wants to repost information sent to the
> Questions list and effectively be the "moderator" for postings from that
> person (because they are useful and relevant to a relevant CABF
> discussion), that member can repost (with permission of the author).  That
> would make the list more open.  Would you support that policy?


While I would love to see more openness, which we argued for quite
passionately in the past, to do so in the way you propose would be to
disregard the purpose of our IPR policies and, I fear, undo a significant
amount of work.

We've gone around and around this issue in the past - from creating a
"lightweight" IPR policy to creating a process similar to IETF Note Well (
https://www.ietf.org/about/note-well.html ), but nothing has come about.
Absent taking concrete action to resolve our IPR policy - something few
members were keen to do - I'm not sure how reposting doesn't create the
same issues that so concerned the members.
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