Carlos, At 2017-05-17 11:56:06 +0100 Carlos Friacas <cfriacas@fccn.pt> wrote:
Hi,
On Wed, 17 May 2017, Nigel Titley wrote:
(...)
Could I make a suggestion:
1. RIPE Chair job description: Doing the sort of things that the RIPE Chair should do.
2. RIPE Chair selection process: Selected as needed
Both of these definitions seem to have worked fine in the past and have the benefit of not involving legions of amateur lawyers who might be better involved in doing something useful.
I will now keep quiet and do something useful
In this line of secret-wg suggestions, i would also like to ask on this list what do you think about the Vatican Chair selection process.
Can we copy it freely (with or without smoke?), or is there any Copyright in place...?
The letter covering this was written in 1996, and does claim to be copyrighted: http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_constitutions/documents/h... As an amateur lawyer, my understanding is that since the Vatican City has signed the Berne Convention for Copyright this will remain copyrighted until 70 years after the death of the author. Since Pope John-Paul II died in 2005 this will remain under copyright until 2075, by which time we may still be discussing the RIPE Chair selection process. So this may indeed be a good starting point. Since we want a process resistant to hacking, we should probably review Bruce Schneier's excellent write-up: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/02/hacking_the_pap.html Not surprisingly, the Wikipedia has a nice write up about the history of the process, including this interesting quote: The lack of an institutionalized process for papal succession was prone to religious schism, and many papal claimants before 1059 are currently regarded by the Church as antipopes, although most are not. Furthermore, the frequent requirement of secular approval of elected popes significantly lengthened periods of sede vacante and weakened the papacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_selection_before_1059 Luckily we work in an industry without any religious wars, so we don't have to worry about this sort of thing. Cheers, -- Shane