Re: Transparency/Openness of the IAOC

John Morris <jmorris-lists@xxxxxxx> · Wed, 8 Dec 2004 15:26:56 -0500

FWIW, it seems likely that at least some commercial contracts (for 
hotels, etc.) will get negotiated on paper or by fax, and so an "all 
paper correspondence" approach could be problematic.  Certainly as an 
attorney there have been times that I have chosen to negotiate only 
in hardcopy (making it easier for me to control the document, or at 
least harder for the other side to take control of a document). 
Also, I can imagine that some people may hesitate to communicate with 
the IAOC if they know that the presumption is that EVERYthing they 
send to IAOC is posted on the public web.

Think carefully about the possibility that a vendor (such as a hotel) 
may want to keep some final contract terms confidential as a 
competitive matter.  Although I strongly support openness, you could 
end up in a situation where, effectively, the contract for a 
conference/hotel costs X if it remains confidential, but X+Y if the 
contract is a public document (not that the document is likely to say 
that in so many words, but vendors may withhold their most aggressive 
contract terms if those terms will become public).  If the IETF 
chooses to require that all contracts be public, it should be aware 
of this possibility.

John

At 1:23 PM -0500 12/8/04, Scott Bradner wrote:
this makes full sense (that the IETF community should have full access
to SOWs, contracts and addenda to contracts) - that is different than
saying that ALL correspondence should be posted on a public web site

so the wording needs to be carefully done

Scott

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Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 13:00:43 -0500
To: sob@xxxxxxxxxxx (Scott Bradner)
From: Margaret Wasserman <margaret@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Transparency/Openness of the IAOC
Cc: ietf@xxxxxxxx

Hi Scott,

At 12:36 PM -0500 12/8/04, Scott Bradner wrote:
  >>  Actually, I think that the IAOC should post all correspondence
1/ I took "all correspondence" to mean "all correspondence"

But, when I said "all correspondence", I didn't mean _all_
correspondence...  :-)

Okay, so this obviously needs to be cleaned up a bit.

What I'm after is that I think the IETF community should be able to
see the actual contracts that we make with our service organizations
and partners (maybe with some financial details omitted if
necessary).  I also think that we should be able to see any official
addenda to the contracts.  And, that we should be able to see
registered correspondence that is received from anyone who expresses
a grievance against us an/or threatens legal action, along with any
response that the IETF sends to those things.

For instance, we were sent a budget that included a proposed RFC
Editor cost of ~$800,000.  This cost is based on a Statement of Work
(SOW) that was negotiated between the IAB and the RFC Editor.  Do we
(the IETF community) have access to that SOW?  (I don't actually know
the answer to this question, but I couldn't find it on a quick
perusal of the IAB and RFC Editor web pages).  Personally, I think
that we should have access to that SOW and other similar documents.

Does that make sense?

Margaret

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