[ale] IEEE... Sort of maybe off topic but... Not really...

Sat Oct 1 12:45:01 EDT 2011

On Sat, 2011-10-01 at 02:45 -0400, planas wrote: 
> Mike,
> 
> On Fri, 2011-09-30 at 21:04 -0400, Michael H. Warfield wrote: 
> 
> > Ok...
> > 
> > A LOT of you on this list know me an many of those know my option of Dan
> > Berstein.  To say we're not generally on the same page would send out
> > howls of laughter in some quarters and shivers of fear in others.
> > 
> > All that being said...  If what he is accusing the IEEE of is even
> > remotely true, we should sit up and take notice.  If you are an IEEE
> > member of Computer Society member, you may wish to let them know just
> > how you feel about this.
> > 
> > http://cr.yp.to/writing/ieee.html

> I think this is the general policy of most academic journals; copyright
> must assigned to them with specific exceptions. This has been true for a
> long time, pre-Internet.

Oh, I agree with you this is true for most academic JOURNALS and even a
number of Universities, even when things are developed with public funds
(i.e. government grants).  We recognize these things do go on.  There
are notable exceptions, but it is what it is.

However....

This is not a journal.  This is an international "professional"
organization.  This is not even like ANSI or OSI which are international
standards bodies who charge outrageous fees for copies of "standards"
but that's how they make their money and support themselves.  IEEE is
much like ACM, ISOC, IETF, ICANN, IANA, and many many others.  It's
stated goal is that of a professional organization.  It should be
promoting the profession.  This is, after all, the origin and nature of
"profession".  To "profess".  To promote.  To advance your field for the
love of that field.  The modern perversion of "profession" (as in
"professional athletics" vs amateur) as meaning "money making" is
historically recent.  Many Amateur Radio Operators show a far FAR higher
level of professionalism than many "professional" radio operators
licensed by the FCC (I have both, been both, and know both). 

By comparison, the IETF is huge and a driving force behind the internet.
How many here remember the olden days of the competing OSI / TCP/IP
wars?  Remember that OSI 7 layer model?  The model we all learn but
TCP/IP conveniently does NOT adhere to (actually, I have a print out of
the OSI 9 layer model in my office printed from an IETF image that
includes the "financial" and "political" layers)?

POP QUIZ...  Who won?

OSI finally threw up their hands and threw the OSI networking at the
IETF and declared "HERE!  You make it work!"  So we're stuck with X.509,
LDAP (striped down DAP - definition of an elephant - mouse designed by
committee) and ASN.1 notation inherited from OSI.

Money making journals centered around money extraction based on control
of information and publication of dead trees aside...  The Internet
Society (ISOC) does not work this way.  USENIX does not work this way.
The IETF works exactly opposite of this way and is antipathetic to it.
FIRST (Forum of Incident Response Security Teams) does NOT work this
way.  I am a member of all of these professional organizations.

OSI, ITU, ANSI and others are another matter.  Those are standards
bodies and that is their sole focus and source of income.  I'll let that
stand as it is, agree or or disagree.  I do personally believe in open
standards and any standard which is NOT open is NOT a standard.  They
disagree.

I'm also a member of ARIN, IANA, and ICANN, all of which are open to all
with nominal fees depending on your level of interest and participation.
Public policy and standards participation are free!  If you hold
resources or you want some level of voting capacity, it's a different
story but not bad (ARIN costs me $100 a year for my ASN and my legacy
membership for my class B - big hairy deal).

I'm am also a member of IEEE, and its Computer Society, and almost
embarrassed by it now.  The ACM is another matter and I do not know
their standing on this matter nor have I inquired of them.

ANSI, OSI, and ITU can and will exist with or without members.

IETF, ISOC, USENIX - they obviously could not.

IEEE - I'm not so sure.  As a member driven organization, it's up to us
in the end.  As an "Open" community, what will we tolerate from our
"professional" organizations and and what level and flavor of
"professionalism" will be demand from them?  My annual dues to IEEE
alone costs me well over double the annual fees paid to any other
professional organization, other than ACM, to which I belong.  ACM is
pulling up a close second to IEEE.  Is it money well spent?  I'm
beginning to question that.

Regards,
Mike

> Before the Internet there was no other
> reasonably efficient method of distributing papers. The problem now is
> the Internet is a very disruptive technology and creates problems for
> many distributors of information, music, movies, etc. The only value of
> any academic journal is peer review and it may be questionable in some
> areas if that is of value. 
> 
> > 
> > I take what ever Dan says with a really big grain of salt but this
> > time...  I just don't know.  I may have to agree with him...
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Mike
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ale mailing list
> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Jay Lozier
> jslozier at gmail.com
> 

-- 
Michael H. Warfield (AI4NB) | (770) 985-6132 |  mhw at WittsEnd.com
   /\/\|=mhw=|\/\/          | (678) 463-0932 |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
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