This is essentially a repeat of a discussion that has happened every few years since the late 1990s. The original idea for the Note Well (at least *my* original idea) was that it should simply be a pointer to the IETF IPR policy, which has many pages of explanation and answers most of the questions that people have been raising on this thread. It should be obvious, I think, that a complex process like the IETF's IPR disclosure procedure can't be fully explained in a couple of sentences. Any such attempt is bound to be incomplete.
This being said, there has been a strong desire by many to have a summary statement that also serves as a pointer to the real policy. That's what the current Note Well is supposed to be. It is NOT a statement of the IETF's IPR rules. Those are contained in BCP 78/79, and anyone who is responsible for his/her company's IPR and/or compliance needs to read those and not rely on the summary statement/pointer contained in Note Well.
Jorge
On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 1:46 PM, Scott O. Bradner <sob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
oops - reviewing my logs, it was Jorge Contreras not Geoff Stewart, and John Klensin was part of
the initial (to blame) group
Scott
On Feb 7, 2014, at 2:43 PM, Scott O. Bradner <sob@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> something that is being missed in this discussion
>
> the old “Note Well” does not do, nor was it intended to do, what people have assumed it did
>
> the Note Well was developed, starting in about April 2000, to provide classification
> on what should be considered a “contribution” to the IETF - at the time there
> was a lot of confusion - some people thought the 2026 IPR rules only applied to
> Internet Draft submission and others thought it covered mailing list and
> microphone statements - the Note Well was developed by me and the then IETF lawyer,
> Geoff Stewart, with the help of Steve Coya and initially discussed at an IESG retreat.
>
> a common feature of the proposed revisions (the IERTF one as well as the IESG ones)
> is to expand the mission of the Note Well to actually say what you should DO if you
> have IPR that an IETF working group would be better off knowing about
>
> note well that the above is a history lesson for context and should not discus the
> current discussion thread other than to perhaps forestall a return to the good old
> Note Well that was not, by itself, actionable
>
> Scott
>
> On Feb 7, 2014, at 1:39 PM, Scott Brim <scott.brim@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> I'm concerned that any abbreviated form will inadequately represent
>> the nuances of the full policy, and that if we create a single uniform
>> abbreviated version that must be shown at f2f meetings, that opens
>> loopholes. For example, possibly: "Well, yes I agreed to the Note
>> Well, but then in the meeting they showed a different version that
>> didn't cover X. I thought that took precedence."
>>
>> There are many ways the full Note Well is dealt with at this time,
>> most of them good. I don't think you'll get more attention paid to the
>> IPR policy by showing an abbreviated form.
>>
>> Scott
>