Robert,
I think the I-D are explicitly NOT public domain. Even in WG form, they
carry rights held by the author and implicit licenses to the WG for
derivative works. To make something public domain I think you have
to take a fairly definite action or declaration since the most recent
revisions of copyright law give all rights to authors upon the creation
of the work, and the author then has to take explicit action to transfer
rights or to confer licenses.
As I recall, the idea with regard to "IETF copyrights" is to try to take a
minimalist approach in terms of erosion of author rights, consistent
with the IETF responsibility to produce evolvable standards.
Vint
At 01:40 AM 10/2/2000 +1100, Robert Elz wrote:
Drafts I submit tend to be one of two forms - either they're WG product,
and are explicitly public domain, and I don't care in the slightest what
anyone does with them, forever (incidentally, those carry the "NOT in
comformance" boilerplate on the I-D, as to be in conformance I would have
to be granting some rights to the ISOC/IETF which is impossible, as being
public domain docs, I have no rights in them to grant to anyone - nor to
in any way restrict what anyone does with them).