Subject: Changes needed to Last Call boilerplate

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:31:48 -0500 (EST)

I've heard from a number of the FSF thundering herd people to the effect of
'but the announcement says send email to [email-masked]". (They're
conveniently ignoring the fact that it says "the IETF community" all over the
place in the Last Call, but never mind.)

So clearly we need to change it to say something like:

 Members of the IETF can send email to [email-masked]. Members of the public
 to whom this Last Call is forwarded, you can send email to
 [email-masked], but we cannot guarantee to do anything with comments
 at such a late stage in the process. Please join the IETF if you wish to
 influence standards while the are being worked on; see
 http://www.ietf.org/<mumble> for instructions on how to do that.

(For "Members of the IETF" we can substitute "People who are subscribed to
the IETF Discussion list", if people think that is needed in place of the
technically somewhat nebulous "Members of the IETF".)

And hopefully we can get a few brave souls to volunteer to read ietf-comment,
and send on any comments which are novel and or important.

    Noel

---

From: Clint Chaplin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:45:24 -0800

Actually, there is a grain of a good idea here that I'd like to extract.

I wouldn't create two places to send comments and attempt to segregate
who can post to which group.  However, creating an
[email-masked] email list and asking >all< last call comments
to be sent to that email list has possibilities.

On 2/12/09, Noel Chiappa <[email-masked]> wrote:
>  _______________________________________________
>  Ietf mailing list
>  [email-masked]
>  https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
>

-- 
Clint (JOATMON) Chaplin
Principal Engineer
Corporate Standardization (US)
SISA

---

From: Michael Dillon <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:22:39 +0000

> technically somewhat nebulous "Members of the IETF".)

If you really want to limit it to people subscribed to the list, forget the
boilerplate, just configure Mailman differently.

With the text above, don't be surprised when people learn that they can
become bona fide IETF members by subscribing to the IETF discussion list and
the new subscription volume swells exponentially. Given the contents of many
of the letters received on the patent issue, I would expect the majority of
those people to be willing, and capable of, subscribing to the IETF list in
order to submit a comment.

Also, don't be surprised when the next time this issue arises, the FSF
encourages people to join the IETF WG discussing the next patent-encumbered
draft.

Fundamentally, the IETF is a legislative body crafting legislation that
allows people to share intellectual property confident that they have the
legal right to do so and that the risks from such sharing are minimized.
Lobbying is fundamental to lawmaking. The roots of the IETF process are in
the 1960's when people enhanced western democratic models with native
American democratic models in which all voices are heard. Perhaps the
solution to this type of issue is to solicit those voices earlier in the
process, and then if there is no consensus, drop any further discussion of
the draft. Patent issues affect more than just the select few who
participate in IETF WGs and meetings.

--Michael Dillon

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From: Ofer Inbar <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:52:11 -0500

> encourages people to join the IETF WG discussing the next patent-encumbered

Those would be positive steps.  I don't think we object to hearing
what people have to say about any topic simply because they happen to
be FSF members.  What we object to is a bunch of "me too" comments
that present no new points, and are clearly coming from people who a)
aren't also receiving them, and b) aren't participating in discussion.

I do like that the IETF list allows non-subscribers to post, even
though it makes these annoyances possible.

However, if we do something that causes the FSF to encourage people to
subscribe if they wish to comment, rather than encouraging people to do
the sort of drive-by we've seen, we'd be happier and they'd be happier.
Those people who don't feel like putting much time into it wouldn't
subscribe; those people who do feel like putting some of their time
into it would be more engaged; the number of substantively identical
messages would be much more self-limiting if a significant proportion
of the would-be activists were subscribed.
  -- Cos

---

From: Rich Kulawiec <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 08:38:30 -0500

> boilerplate, just configure Mailman differently.

Enthusiastic second, as this is a better and cleaner idea, preferable
over the overly-complex alternatives proposed.   (The same could be done
to other lists as well.)  It isn't at all difficult to facilitate this
kind of discussion just by using the features that are already there.

(And if there's a need for a feature which doesn't yet exist?  The
Mailman community has shown itself quite responsive to the needs
and suggestions of users, doubly so when those are accompanied by
working code.)

I find web-based forums idiosyncratic, difficult-to-use, and resistant
to offline reading, archiving and searching.  Mail is still, by a huge
margin, the very best means of conducting these conversations.

---Rsk

---

From: Tim Bray <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:11:07 -0800

> So clearly we need to change it to say something like:

For the record, I strongly oppose this change.  The problem seems neither
very common nor very serious, and the "solution" seems unduly complex and
likely to result in unintended side-effects.  -Tim