Re: [Ianaplan] control and negotiation (was Re: draft-ietf-ianaplan-icg-response-02 working group last call)

[Milton L Mueller <[e-mail]>]

Andrew:

> On Wed, Nov 05, 2014 at 03:16:38PM +0000, Milton L Mueller wrote:
> > Miles's argument and logic seem unassailable to me.
> 
> Really?  Ok, let me assail them.
> 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > >
> The IETF Trust has nothing to do with this, yet, because despite what
> some people keep saying there are, as yet, no assets for the Trust to
> control.  The plan is to ask that there be no copyright on the contents
> of the registries -- public domain -- so the Trust doesn't have anything
> to hold.  

Will that plan work? Might be good to have some advice. A lawyer might have told you that in order to prevent your registry contents from being copyrighted (or their source identifier from being trademarked) you might have to copyright or trademark them yourself, and issue a general public license to keep them in the public domain. Any reason why we should not ask for this advice? 

> And by my reckoning, there is as yet no consensus to ask for
> iana.org or the IANA trademark.

There is certainly a preponderance of opinion that we should. Failing to ask for it certainly has no consensus. 

> The IAOC _is_ participating here, since Russ (by virtue of his position as
> IAB chair) is on the IAOC and has said some things.  I haven't looked at
> the list membership to see whether there are others on the IAOC who
> are paying attention to this discussion.

That's true enough, and a good point, so why is Miles's suggestion greeted with such panic?  What's stopping getting some additional opinions from the Trust or from the IETF counsel? 

> simply don't believe in: I think the only reason the IETF's stuff is "the
> standard" is because people believe that.  It's like fiat money.  Claiming
> that there's a government behind it is what people do, but that's not
> what makes the money worth anything.  Ask people in Argentina.

You're missing the point about confidence in standards. To continue with the financial analogy, you are in effect saying, "we don't mind if people issue counterfeit money, everyone knows where to get the real stuff."

 Well, maybe, but more likely, some people will be fooled and a lot of people will be confused. And since the costs or downsides of controlling the domain and the trademark are negligible, why take that risk? Have you ever described one bad thing that would happen if this proposal calls for moving the trademark or the domain? I don't think you have. So claiming that you don't think it will be necessary is a very weak argument.