Re: [Gendispatch] New Version Notification for draft-thomson-gendispatch-rfc-derivatives-00.txt

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

On 29-Sep-23 05:29, Joel Halpern wrote:
...
> History suggests that we have already solved this problem when there is a clear resolution.  

Exactly. I don't see why we would want a generic policy. There's a real and present danger that such a generic policy would lead third parties to believe that they can produce their own pet alternative protocols *using the same name and IANA assignments* but that don't interoperate.

As the draft says of the current rules: "This could unduly give the IETF an monopoly over the maintenance of protocols that are published as IETF documents." It isn't "unduly". It is the absolute intention of the "no derivative works" policy. Exemptions should always be special cases for good reasons, as in the example below. The Trust can always be asked for such an exemption.

    Brian

> For example, we turned over maintenance of a number of Ethernet MIBs to IEEE.  It seems that if the community has decided we are not interested in a spec, and there is a clear and sensible place willing to maintain it, we work things out.  (Such transfer is now easier; ew didn't have clear rights when we did this in the past.) On the other hand, deciding we didn't want to maintain a spec, and throwing it open so anyone could make competing derivations would seem a dereliction of our responsibility as much as just ignoring the document.
> 
> If there is a systemic problem that needs to be addressed, the draft should identify the problem and propose a remedy that address the problem.
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Joel
> 
>