Re: Future Handling of Blue Sheets

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Thursday, May 10, 2012 09:42 -0800 Melinda Shore
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 5/10/12 9:32 AM, Martin Rex wrote:
>> There has never been a need to actively broadcast these
>> massive amounts of personally identifiable information (PII),
>> and I haven't seen any convincing rationale for doing it now.
> 
> To be honest, "I don't want to receive more spam" and "My boss
> might
> find out I skipped a session" are not reasons not to be open
> about
> who's participating in sessions, particularly as we drift
> towards a
> meetings/voting model.  I understand sensitivity about
> broadcasting
> travel plans but in general some of the arguments being
> offered for
> being a less open organization with a less open process are
> drifting
> into "The FBI implanted a radio transmitter in my teeth"
> territory,
> and it seems to me that making blue sheets available after
> meetings
> does not reveal much PII beyond what's already available on
> the mailing
> lists.
> 
> There's a serious question here about tradeoffs between
> privacy and
> openness.  Openness is not just a core institutional value
> (although
> it is one - do not forget that), but it's also a defense
> against
> charges of collusion, which, unfortunately, we've been seeing.

+1

Also, please note that there is an interaction between this and
draft-farrresnickel-ipr-sanctions (now in Last Call).
Regardless of the other issues with that particular proposal,
the only real way to escape the IETF's IPR disclosure
requirements about something of which one is aware is to not
participate in any way in an affected WG.  I hate the idea of
the community getting embroiled in accusations and
counter-accusations but one advantage to a working IPR policy
(as well as general openness) of publishing the blue sheets is
the ability to notice and send reminder notes of the form of
"hey, I think I say you in WG FooBar and you've mentioned that
your company is doing work in the area, did you accidentally
forget to sign the blue sheet".   Of course, that means there is
one missing part of the current IESG picture and that is the
ability of people to add their names (perhaps as errata) to the
published blue sheets if an omission was unintentional.

    john