Redline versions of Guidelines

[Ben Wilson]

Hi,

I'm looking at the IPR Policy language and section 2.4 of the Bylaws dealing with providing the complete redlined version of revisions to the guidelines.

If the Draft Guideline Ballot is proposing a Final Maintenance Guideline, such ballot will include a redline or comparison showing the set of changes from the Final Guideline section(s) intended to become a Final Maintenance Guideline, and need not include a copy of the full set of guidelines or text describing the proposed changes. Such redline or comparison shall be made against the Final Guideline section(s) as they exist at the time a ballot is proposed, and need not take into consideration other ballots that may be proposed subsequently, except as provided in Section 2.4(10) below. In the event there is a conflict between the text of a Final Guideline or Final Maintenance Guideline included in a Draft Guideline Ballot (the “Ballot Version”), and the text in the redline/comparison copy of the Final Guideline or Final Maintenance Guideline attached to the Draft Guideline Ballot (the “Redline Version”), the Ballot Version shall in all cases take precedence over the redline version.

How hard has it been to create this specimen (i.e. PDF)?  If it is relatively easy, then let's leave it.  If not, then we should edit the Bylaws and IPR Policy to make it clear that a PDF isn't required and to make it easier to issue Notices of IPR Review Period. (As a matter of practice, I think we generally are posting all changes using GitHub.)

Thanks,

Ben

[Tim Hollebeek]

You’re confusing two things here: the description of changes being proposed by the proposer, and the IPR PDF sent out for review. I know it would be easier for chairs if those two were the same thing and had the same requirements, but they’re currently not, so we have to be careful with what’s actually required where, and what we might want to change.

 

The section you quoted is about what the ballot proposer needs to provide, and the only problem I have with this section is that people often claim the exception in section 2.4(10) says far more than it actually does, and it is these overly expansive interpretations that have cause most of the problems. The original intent was actually to make it easier for people to propose ballots, for example by pointing only to a github redline without a word or PDF as we required in the previous iteration, many moons ago. It was also to solve problems with conflicts between the redline and the previous textual descriptions that were also required at the time.

 

The minimum requirement here is that ballot proposers produce a redline of their changes against specific BR sections being modified that clearly show the proposed changes. Either (1) pointing to a github redline, or (2) copy/pasting the section(s) you want to modify into anything that can produce a redline are both quite easy, so level of effort shouldn’t really be a problem here. This seems eminently reasonable to me, and it’s probably hard to reduce any further. The requirements are intentionally vague on exactly how the redline is done, to allow people to use whatever tooling they are comfortable with.

 

In short, I think we should leave the language you quoted alone. It’s intended to make sure the ballot process isn’t onerous or a barrier to any member who wants to propose a ballot.

 

The “Notices of IPR Review Period” come from somewhere else:

“The CAB Forum Chair shall initiate the Review Period by distributing to each Working Group Participant a notice of review period and a complete draft of the Draft Guideline that is the subject of such notice (“Review Notice”).”

 

If people want to discuss changing that to make it less time consuming for chairs, I’m open to that, as long as it is actually clear exactly what changes are being made and reviewed as part of the successful ballot. I get that providing a complete draft might not be necessary immediately after everyone just voted on exactly the same ballot, and in theory understood what the changes were at that time …

 

-Tim

 

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[Ben Wilson]

Hi Tim,

Sorry if I drew too much focus to the Bylaws.  The high-level goal of the IPR revisions is to ensure that the process for filing Exclusion Notices cannot be used to open the door and allow someone to claim an RF exclusion on existing guideline language that has already been adopted and well-accepted. Specifically, many parts of section 4 of the IPR Policy need to be clarified, and it would be good if section 2.4 of the Bylaws didn't conflict or cause confusion with such improvements to the IPR policy.

For example, the language you quoted re: "a notice of review period and a complete draft of the Draft Guideline that is the subject of such notice", doesn't differentiate Final Guidelines from Final Maintenance Guidelines, but it should.  It should say something like "The Review Notice for a Final Guideline shall include a complete draft of what is intended to become the Final Guideline, and the Review Notice for a Final Maintenance Guideline shall include the set of changes from the last approved guideline that are intended to be become the new Final Maintenance Guideline." That would be more in line with the existing Bylaws, and we need to provide more guidance on what is allowed. Also, going forward, it would be good to include more procedural details in the Bylaws (and remove such details from the IPR policy), because the Bylaws are easier to amend than the IPR Policy.

Thanks,

Ben

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[Tim Hollebeek]

Totally agree on all those points.

 

-Tim

 

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