--On Wednesday, 07 June, 2006 14:22 -0400 "Gray, Eric" <Eric.Gray@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > John, > > I disagree both in the belief that the Note Well is > clear on this and the sense of your argument that anyone > participating in any part of a discussion can be made > retroactively responsible for the entire discussion. I think were we disagree is about the notion that inclusion of one's name in an acknowledgement implies "responsibility" for any part of the discussion, much less all of it. > The Note Well is not clear because it makes sweeping > statements about the way in which BCP 78 and 79 may apply > to "contributions". The obvious (but not clear) intent is > that what you contribute is now subject to provisions of > these BCPs that apply to contributions. What is both more > subtle and not clearly excluded is that _only_ what you've > contributed applies and that contributing to a work is not > the same as "authoring" it. To the extent to which you believe that the Note Well is unclear or defective, please take that to the IPR WG. > I refer directly to the required RFC inclusions that > specifically use the word "author" and their rights and > responsibilities with respect to IPR and copyrights. If I > make a comment about a rev -01 version of a draft and stop > participating in the work, I may not be held accountable > for IPR I may know of but which did not enter into the text > until sometime after I stopped looking at it. I believe that is true. I also do not believe that an acknowledgement constitutes an assertion of accountability. But those are matters for counsel -- I will assert my beliefs about what ought to be happening here, but not about the legal implications of particular text. In particular, I do not believe that inclusion or exclusion from an acknowledgement implies an IPR claims or responsibilities at all: to do so would confound many centuries of publications history. An exception might(and probably would) arise if the contribution were identified in very specific terms, but those terms would bind that particular author/ contributor only to that text. As far as I recall, we have never included text in acknowledgements that says, e.g., "Joe Blow contributed section 1.2.3.4 in its entirety and it is used with his permission", so the implications of that form are not relevant. > Similarly, if I object to work that has been done, you > may not attach my name to it against my objections - unless > either the Note Well, and the BCPs, both explicitly include > a provision for implied consent. If that is the case, now, > then it is most certainly not "clear" that it is. It would clearly be inappropriate to list you as an author. Given our current peculiar definition of "Contributor" in the RFC sense, it would probably be inappropriate to include you as one of those, at least without permitting you to include a statement of dissent. It seems to me that you have no standing to object to the inclusion of your name in an acknowledgement if you, in fact, did something that the author thought was appropriate to acknowledge. I'd hope that, in normal circumstances, the author would honor your request to remove your name, but I can also see circumstances in which removing your name would be inappropriate. As one specific example, suppose the acknowledgements said "Significant contributions to the topics discussed in this document came from an ad hoc group consisting of <list of participants in that group>". Now, adding a "not all members of the group agree with the final conclusions represented in this document" would be appropriate if true. But removing a name from the list of people who participated in the group, especially the name of someone who could be clearly determined from the group's mailing list to have actively participated, would simply be a lie and, IMO, completely inappropriate. > This is the negative side of the discussion going on. > People are focusing on reasons why someone might want to be > included in acknowledgements. I am merely pointing out that > it is also possible that someone might not want this. Understood. But that is precisely why listing in an acknowledgement must not have implications of "responsibility" for the whole document. And this discussion really belongs in the IPR WG. john _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf