[CWG-Stewardship] FW: IPR follow up

[Andrew Sullivan]

Hi,

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 01:56:41PM -0500, Greg Shatan wrote:

> But to my mind, it is expedient rather than preferable.

I won't speak for the IETF Trust, but speaking as a Trustee I can say
that _I_ think it is expedient rather than preferable, too.  Given
that whatever we do has to be completely sewn up in time for a
transition in Q4 of 2016 (i.e. roughly 10 months from now), I think
that "expedient and workable" ought to be a high-value qualifying
criterion.  

> ​Actually, I think it would be quite helpful.  Furthermore, I don't think
> that there are significant economic or resource differences between working
> up an arrangement with the IETF and working up an arrangement for a new
> trust.

You are suggesting is that hammering out a new trust agreement among
three operational communities that will specify a new governance
structure, and then hammering out all the other issues that one needs
in an agreement, will take no more time than just doing the second of
those things.  I would like to know why you think that.  It's
certainly true that setting up a new trust is the work of an afternoon
for a competent lawyer.  But I don't think that's the hard part here.
Given that we've had months to tackle this question and haven't yet
even agreed amongst ourselves what principles should apply, I cannot
say I'm optimistic that setting up a completely new legal entity in
collaboration with two other communities -- both of which have to go
through their own consensus processes in order to agree to do it --
will be the fast path.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com