I am the assigned Gen-ART reviewer for this draft. For background on Gen-ART, please see the FAQ at <http://wiki.tools.ietf.org/area/gen/trac/wiki/GenArtfaq>. Please resolve these comments along with any other Last Call comments you may receive. Document: draft-eggert-successful-bar-bof-06 Reviewer: Ben Campbell Review Date: 2011-09-07 IETF LC End Date: 2011-09-08 Summary: This draft is nearly ready for publication as an informational RFC, but has some open issues Major issues: -- I share some of the concerns of other last call commenters, in that an RFC is written in stone. This draft is written in response to a current trend, and may make no sense, or worse, be interpreted very differently in future contexts. On the other hand, I agree the trend that it addresses needs to be, uhm, addressed. This might be fixable with a more strongly worded "scope of applicability" pointing this out. Or maybe an RFC is not the right approach--I'm not really sure what the right way to move forward is here. -- Section 6 suggests side meetings should be (somehow "informally") covered by NOTE WELL. I think this is a very dangerous suggestion. The rest of the document suggests that a side meeting has no official standing. That seems to me to mean it's no different than a group of people who coincidentally participate in the IETF having a dinner or bar meeting on any subject at any time. Or a hallway conversation, for that matter. By the logic of this section, I can't really figure out how "informal" a meeting would need to be before it no longer fell under NOTE WELL. In an informal meeting, the participants should be able to follow any IPR policy they like. I can even imagine an informal meeting covered by an NDA, where the participants want to decide if they want to have further discussions of a subject under IETSF IPR rules or not. I think the best we can hope to do is suggest that side meeting organizers and participants be explicit with their expectations on IPR and confidentiality, so there is less chance for down-stream surprises. If we want something stronger than that, then we really need to create a new category of "official" meeting. Minor issues: -- section 1, 2nd to last paragraph: Good luck in asking for a cultural change to behavior that is unofficial in the first place. I think we're better off clarifying the term people already use than trying to introduce a new one. Nits/editorial comments: -- section 3, 5th paragraph: "dialogs between two people, which is much more ineffective than a group discussion around a restaurant table." I suggest s/"more ineffective"/"less effective" _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf