Re: [Techspec] RFC Author Count and IPR

  *> 
  *> I am concerned that the current RFC Editor practice that limits the 
  *> number of authors is in conflict with the IETF IPR policies.  The RFC 
  *> Editor currently limits the author count to five people.  Recent IPR 
  *> WG discussions make it clear to me that authors retain significant copyright.

Note that the number 5 is not magic here.  When the phenomenon of
balooning lists of authors (say, one or more from every telecom vendor
you ever heard of) was first noticed, there was a discussion on the
IETF list.  The community consensus was that author list inflation was
"un-IETF".  I don't recall the details (there may have been a last call
from the IESG, but I am not sure), but it was left to the RFC Editor to
formulate the precise guideline.  Five seemed like a reasonable limit.
Do you like 6 better?

We do tend to push back (via the WG chairs) a bit on more than 5
authors, since we knew that if there were many exceptions granted,
everyone would discover they needed an exception, defeating the purpose
of the limitation.  We have found that almost everyone affected by
the limit has understood the problem and been very cooperative in
keeping to it.

I do not recall the IPR issue raised before.

Bob Braden for the RFC Editor

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