--On Tuesday, August 06, 2013 02:06 +0100 Stephen Farrell
<stephen.farrell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>...
> On 08/05/2013 06:38 PM, John C Klensin wrote:
>> The reasons to discourage anonymity aren't just "patent
>> nonsense" (although that should be sufficient and I rather
>> like the pun).
>
> Thanks. The pun was accidental as it happens, but I did leave
> it in after I spotted it :-)
>
> Puns aside, its an important point. Most patents are nonsense
> (in terms of being really inventive) and we shouldn't base
> our processes anywhere near primarily on the existence of that
> nonsense.
Agreed, modulo observations about how much time we seem to put
into fine-tuning IPR policies and devising threats to make to
those who don't seem inclined to comply.
>> Despite all we say and believe about individual
>> participation, the IETF has a legitimate need to understand
>> the difference between comments on a specification from an
>> audience with diverse perspectives and organized campaigns or
>> a loud minority with a shared perspective.
>
> Good point. We have similar issues with folks who do lots of
> contract work I guess. But, IMO we should first make sure we
> can hear the good points that are to be made, and only then
> modulate our reactions to those in terms of who-pays-whom or
> whatever.
Indeed.
> Put another way, regardless of patents or who's paying, if
> someone (even anonymously) comes up with a really good
> technical point, then we do have to pay attention. But I think
> we do do that.
When, as you indirectly point out, we can "hear" them.
> In contrast, I think the real challenge remote participants
> face is being heard. And when/if we solve that problem, I
> suspect that remote participants with bad ideas will be a far
> worse problem than those who'd like to submarine a patent or
> further a subtle corporate agenda.
Of course, that is also true of participants who show up and
more f2f meetings.
> So again that leads me back to trying to encourage folks to
> just make the tools better for us all and to only then try
> figure out how we need to manage that. Perhaps Hadriel's
> anecdote above means that how we use jabber is, after about a
> decade, now mature enough that we ought think more about how
> we formalise its use. I'm ok with waiting another longish time
> before even thinking about how to do the same with successful
> inbound audio for example.
I'm actually not a big fan of inbound audio, at least not yet.
It is subject to the same technical and operational issues that
make outbound audio fragile, including the difficulties of clear
and "standard" pronunciation plus the same "how to raise your
hand, get in line, or otherwise ask for the floor" issues that
Jabber does. But, if we are going to rely on Jabber for input,
we need to move toward treating it as a source of input with the
same priority as those in the room (and relatively more real
time), not something that is a nice-to-have when it happens to
work.
best,
john