IAB Open Meeting Reported by Abel Weinrib/Intel An on-line copy of these and other IAB minutes are available from ftp.isi.edu:pub/IAB. First Session -- 4 April The following IAB members were present: Brian Carpenter Steve Crocker Robert Elz Elise Gerich Phill Gross Christian Huitema Paul Mockapetris Jon Postel Yakov Rekhter John Romkey Dave Sincoskie Abel Weinrib This meeting was devoted to an open investigation into Dave Crocker's appeal of activities, or lack of activities, by the IESG in relation to the work of the ONCRPC Working Group of the IETF. At the start, Christian Huitema described the scope of the inquiry -- in particular, that the technical merits of ONC/RPC or other technologies is not being addressed here. He then described the format, which included 10-minute statements from the involved parties who had been invited to submit a written statement in advance followed by questions from IAB members. After all of the statements, comments were taken from the floor, limited to two minutes and without repeat speakers. Christian also announced that the IAB would present its finding at the open IAB meeting scheduled for 5 April. Dave Crocker, the initiator of the appeal, went first. See his slides included with these minutes. He closed with three recommendations: 1. Open accountability of the IESG, including having the IESG held to the same reporting and tracking discipline as working groups and ready availability of the minutes of IESG meetings. 2. Procedure and rule problems should be addressed by allowing the IETF community to grant exceptions by consensus. 3. Policy change: the IESG should do more open consultation with the IETF community. Questions from the IAB: Robert Elz: How should the IESG consult the IETF, when should it have happened in this case, and what effect would it have had on RFC 1602? Answer: When process hit a brick wall, the IESG should have come to the community via e-mail or an open meeting at IETF. The community should have fixed RFC 1602 on the fly -- it was a broken specification. Bob Hinden, who was employed by Sun till January of 1995 and was the negotiator on Sun's side until then, spoke next. See his slides. Bob suggested that we need to fix the specification (RFC 1602) regarding Intellectual Property procedures. He also asked where was the relevant area director during the negotiations and why didn't ISOC provide liability insurance in a timely fashion? Questions from the IAB: Robert Elz: What might the IESG have done to move this along? Answer: The problem was a lack of ownership on the IESG side and too much handing around of the problem. Also, whoever is doing the negotiation really needs to also have the signing authority. Christian Huitema: Should Sun simply have ``abandoned'' it via a public statement? Answer: Perhaps; Sun has been giving this technology away for a long time. Steve Crocker: It is open ended as to why there needs to be a signed agreement. What did Sun need the agreement for? Answer: To meet procedures of RFC 1602, and also to transfer rights to the trademarks. Next, Steve Nahm from Sun who took over the negotiations from Bob Hinden was invited to speak. He declined the opportunity to present a formal talk, and reported that the agreement is likely to be signed this week. Question from the IAB: Christian Huitema: Is Sun trying to maintain Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)? Answer: Sun retains the IPR but licenses to ISOC the exclusive right to make it an Internet standard, to evolve it. Sun will license the technology for free once it gets to Proposed Standard status. Dave Sincoskie: Would Sun have been happy to send a letter regarding IPR, rather than negotiating a contract with ISOC? Answer: Sun would not like to totally give away the technology; it would prefer to license it. Dave Sincoskie: Would there have been a way to do it without anyone from ISOC signing anything, but instead simply sending a letter to the standards body? Answer: Sun was following RFC 1602, but would definitely have looked at some other way of doing it. Steve Crocker: The essence is where has the time gone. How much time has been consumed by Sun, early on and more recently? Answer: The time gap between original suggestion and working group formation was Sun's and the Area Director's problem. The working group first met at the March 1994 IETF and was done with their work in May 1994. Since then, the time has been spent in trying to figure out what process to go through to complete it. Raj Srinivisian, who works for SunSoft and was chair of the ONCRPC Working Group declined to present a formal statement. He commented that the ``problem word'' in the IPR section of RFC 1602 is ``warrant.'' Question from the IAB: Brian Carpenter: The question has been raised whether two competing technologies can both be IETF standards -- what does Raj think about this? Answer: There is a place for competing standards. His hope is that there will be a boilerplate contract that can make the process fast. Vint Cerf, ISOC President, was not present. His prepared statement was read aloud. The final presenter was Paul Mockapetris, IESG chair since March 1994. He observed that each legal iteration takes about three months, and outlined the time line for the ONCRPC effort. See his slides. He also observed that everyone is one ``rule exception'' away from happiness, but the question is who decides. Question from the IAB: Christian Huitema: Do you want to be forced to abide by RFC 1602? Does RFC 1602 document rules, guidelines or history? Answer: We need to make a template agreement that will be acceptable to both sides in the future. The final Sun agreement might provide a model for this. We also need ways to deal with patent owners. Finally, we need someone chartered to do negotiations based on these. Elise Gerich: Do we need some sort of documents other than Informational RFCs to describe binding rules? Answer: Too much corner cutting was a problem. Dave Sincoskie: Would a unilateral statement be enough? Answer: Yes, as long as the working group can use its judgment and we have a form that sets precedent. Christian Huitema: Was the existence of competing technologies slowing things down? Answer: No. In fact, Paul was involved in no technical aspects of this matter. There followed a series of statements from the floor: Bill Noichian, editor of the original Informational RFCs about Sun RPC: At that time, Sun pretty much left it on the street corner. We need Sun RPC on the standards track so can base other work on it. William Simpson listed the conclusions he would like to see: o The IESG did not know when it was not making forward progress -- it should have reported this to the community. o The IESG is not getting the support, including legal advice, from the Secretariat that it needs to be a decision making body. o Bilateral agreements are not what we want. We strongly prefer technologies that do not have IPR constraints, so the owners should unilaterally release the IPR rights before it becomes a Standard. Stev Knowles: The IESG made a bad decision when it decided it wanted to be a standards body, requiring things like insurance, lawyers, etc., -- and requiring rules. The problem is that RFC 1602 was known to be broken a year ago, but no one stepped up to fix it. John Stewart: It is a bad model for the IETF to own anything, and for ISOC to be a holding company for this. We need a clear definition of the rules. John Tavs, addressing Mobile IP and patent issues: ``Fair and nondiscriminatory'' is difficult to describe. Cookie cutter agreements are not going to be sufficient because different technologies have different values and every case is different. Second Session -- 5 April o Review of this IAB's accomplishments. (See slides) o Reviving the IRTF. (See slides) o Announce signing of ISO/SC6/JTC1 liaison agreement. The liaison agreement has been signed. o Findings on ONC inquiry. The following statement was read: The IAB has been asked to review and respond on the timeliness of the procedures followed for forwarding RPC/XDR to the standards track. The IAB invited representatives of the IESG, SUN, and ISOC to submit statements documenting their perception of what transpired. Then, during an open session at the IETF, the representatives were invited to present their positions to the IAB and the IETF membership. In addition, the IETF membership was invited to address this topic after the representatives had presented their positions. After reading the submissions and listening to the presentations and comments made at the open meeting, it seems like the fundamental question being asked is: (To quote D. Crocker) ``Does the process represent reasonable prudence or institutional paralysis?'' The conclusion of the IAB, and apparently of all the speakers, is that the defined process led to institutional paralysis. The text of RFC 1602, which defines how the IETF/IESG should operate, has a procedure for adopting external technologies which is unimplementable. The process defined in RFC 1602 has raised deeper issues which warrant consideration. RFC 1602 is intended to specify the process to be followed by the IETF and related bodies. On the other hand, it was assumed that the procedures might require modification over time. The working group process is the appropriate place to propose modifications to the procedures, with revisions appearing as Internet-Drafts, undergoing the Last Call procedure, and finally being adopted. This is necessarily a slow process and as such may result in an unnecessary obstruction of IETF business. There must be a mechanism by which the IESG can obtain dispensation from the rules stated in RFC 1602 (or the next version) when documented procedures introduce unnecessary obstruction of business. The IAB supports the recommendations of many of the speakers who proposed revisions to RFC 1602 which would: a) designate an owner of the intellectual property rights process b) specify a procedure to negotiate variations The IAB also supports the recommendation to the POISED group, that the working group review other standards' bodies' procedures prior to revising those of the IETF. Since the specific reason for this appeal appears to be resolved, it is unnecessary for the IAB to request any action by the IESG or any other bodies.