RE: Normatively referenced specifications

[SM <[e-mail]>]

Hi David,
At 15:43 17-12-2013, Black, David wrote:
>I'm concerned - at an abstract level, this question appears to be
>headed towards applying the IETF's IPR policy to standards developed
>by other standards organizations by virtue of IETF documents
>containing normative references to such standards.

Yes.

>I suspect that the IETF could be rather uncomfortable being on the
>receiving end of another standards organization doing that to
>our standards (applying their IPR policy to IETF standards courtesy
>of normative references in their standards).  I might suggest that
>a useful criterion for application of IETF's IPR policy to a standard
>developed by another organization could be (re)publication of that
>document as an IETF standard (to which the IETF IPR policy would
>then be clearly applicable).  There are situations in which the
>same standard is published by IETF and another standards organization.

The republication might cause other problems as you then have two 
specifications.  There may be a divergence between the two 
specifications in the far future.  As mentioned above the IETF might 
be uncomfortable if it was at the receiving end.

>I will also observe that as a participant in multiple standards
>organizations across which normative references and collaborative
>standards development activity occurs, one IPR policy per organization
>is quite enough to deal with ... really ;-).

:-)

>OTOH, I do think that there is a problem in what you observed:
>
> > For what it is worth, I reviewed
> > a draft from a working group in the RAI area
> > recently.  The draft was written to address an
> > interoperability problem affecting a
> > technology.  The specification for that
> > technology was not referenced.
>
>If I were reviewing that draft (e.g., as a Gen-ART reviewer), I would
>have raised a major issue about the missing normative reference, as it
>is clearly not possible to implement the improved interoperability
>behavior for that technology without implementing the technology itself.
>
>That reference, and especially the citation of the entity that developed
>the reference, ought to provide implementers who care with enough
>direction to start to run down the relevant IPR considerations.

I would list the issue as minor in an area-specific review if I need 
to read the referenced document to understand the draft being 
reviewed.  I agree with what is written above.

Regards,
-sm