RE: Requests for password to the protected site.
Howard,
I absolutely agree with you and followed the same type of policy when I was
chairing 10BASE-T and 802.3. Over the years, we have gotten increasingly
restrictive on draft distribution and to tighten it down this far will
reduce
the review we need.
I have always understood the copyright statement you quote as allowing
me to distribute the draft to coworkers involved in implementation so that
they could review it and feed me their comments. They have provided
important
comments especially regarding clarity of the spec. Those of us who go to
meetings read the spec with the background we have gained at meetings. While
we try to make sure what we write is clear, we often don't realize we have
left out information necessary to a clear, unambiguous specification.
Feedback from readers who don't attend meetings and are actually trying
to design to the written pages is essential.
Pat
-----Original Message-----
From: Howard Frazier [mailto:millardo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2000 4:04 PM
To: stds-802-3-hssg@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Requests for password to the protected site.
I think that the policy of limiting access to the drafts to the 802.3
membership
list or the 802.3ae attendance list is unnecessarily and improperly
restrictive.
The copyright information on the front of the draft says:
Permission is hereby granted for IEEE Standards Committee participants
to reproduce this document for purposes of IEEE standardization
activities.
During 802.3z, I interpretted this to mean that any one who was
participating
in the work of the 802.3z Task Force was allowed access to the draft. Since
many people participate solely via email, I considered all members of the
stds-802-3-hssg reflector to be eligible for access.
Standards benefit from broad review. Some very useful comments were
submitted
during 802.3z from people who never attended a meeting. I strongly encourage
the leadership of 802.3ae and 802.3 to reconsider the draft access policy,
in
favor of a more open policy.
Howard Frazier
DomiNet Systems, Inc.
Bruce Tolley wrote:
>
> Geoff and Jonathan:
>
> Many thanks for the email.
>
> I just wanted to point out the obvious. This policy prohibits access to
> the very folks who need access: the R&D teams across the world who are
busy
> building 10 GbE product.
>
> It might be time to the IEEE to rethink the IP philosophy behind the
> copyright. The spec only has value if it is accessible to those who need
to
> implement it today and over the next year. I am guess that the IP lawyers
> have probably recommended this very policy in order to prevent the content
> of the draft entering the public domain.
>
> By restricting access the IEEE might be honoring the letter of their
> interpretation of the copyright law, but they are definitely lowering the
> value of the draft spec. The spec only has value if it is implemented so
by
> hindering implementation this policy lessens its value.
>
> This policy not only hinders the development of products based on the spec
> but it also puts many of us in the VERY awkward position of having to
> resist somewhat legitimate requests to violate the the policy.
>
> Thanks for listening
>
> Bruce Tolley
> Enterprise Line of Business
> Cisco Systems
>
> Bruce
>
> Bruce Tolley
>
> At 12:43 PM 10/28/00 -0700, Jonathan Thatcher wrote:
>
> >I have recently received a significant number of requests for the
password
> >to the protected site. I have checked each person requesting this
> >information against the membership list of 802.3 and the attendees of
> >802.3ae. For those that were in these lists, I have forwarded the
password.
> >For those that were not, I have explained that the IEEE copyright
> >policy/terms limit distribution to those who are attending the meetings.
> >
> >Because the burden of doing this is getting to be "a bit much." I will be
> >forwarding a note to all 802.3 members and all who have been attending
> >meetings informing them of the password.
> >
> >We invite all to come to the meetings and participate in the process (and
> >thereby receive the password). Information on our next meeting can be
found
> >at:
> >http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/3/plenary.html
> >
> >Information on future meetings can be found in the minutes from the
meeting.
> >See:
> >http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/3/ae/public/sep00/minutes_0900.pdf
> >
> >Thank you for understanding,
> >
> >jonathan
> >
> >Jonathan Thatcher, Principal Engineer
> >Chair, IEEE P802.3ae (10 Gigabit Ethernet)
> >World Wide Packets
> >115 North Sullivan Rd
> >PO Box 950
> >Veradale WA 99037
> >509-242-9228; Fax 509-242-9001;
> >jonathan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx