RFC 2031 (rfc2031) - Page 3 of 4

IETF-ISOC relationship

RFC 2031                 IETF-ISOC Relationship             October 1996


   ISOC will, like the IETF use public discussion and consensus building
   processes when it wants to develop new policies or regulations that
   may influence the role of ISOC in the Internet or the Internet
   Technical work. ISOC will always put work related to Internet
   standards, Internet technical issues or Internet operations up for
   discussion in the IETF through the IETF Internet-drafts publication
   process.

The legal umbrella

   To avoid the fact that the IETF has to construct its own legal
   structure to protect the standards and the standards process, ISOC
   should provide a legal umbrella. The legal umbrella will at least
   cover:
   - legal insurance for all IETF officers (IAB, IESG, Nomcom and WG
      chairs);
   - legal protection of the RFC series of documents; In such a way
     that these documents can be freely (i.e. no restrictions
     financially or otherwise) distributed, copied etc. but cannot
     be altered or misused. And that the right to change the document
     lies with the IETF.
   - legal protection in case of Intellectual property rights disputes
     over Internet Standards or parts thereof.

The standards process role

   ISOC will assist the standards process by
     - appointing the nomcom chair
     - approving IAB candidates
     - reviewing and approving the documents that describe the standards
       process (i.e. the formal Poised documents).
     - acting as the last resort in the appeals process

Security considerations

   By involving ISOC into specific parts of the Standards process, the
   IETF has no longer absolute control. It can be argued that this is a
   breach of security. It is therefore necessary to make sure that the
   ISOC involvement is restricted to well defined and understood parts,
   at well defined and understood boundary conditions. The Poised WG
   attempts to define these, and they are summarised in this document.

   There are three alternatives:

   - Do nothing and ignore the increasing responsibility and growth; the
     risk here is that the IETF either becomes insignificant, or will be
     suffocated by US law suits.




Huizer                       Informational