|
Re: The IETF Trust License is too restricted
2005-12-05 07:56:48
Simon,
You are bit behind real time. We already updated this text.
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf-announce/current/msg01837.html
Brian
Simon Josefsson wrote:
The text in section 9.5 appear to me to make it permanently impossible
to incorporate portions of RFC in both free or proprietary products.
I believe that is unacceptable, and that it is counter to the needs of
many in the IETF community.
In the IPR WG, I have documented that implementations of IETF
documents distributed by Debian, FreeBSD and Sun need the rights to
incorporate portions of RFCs in their products.
The section reads:
9.5 Licenses
The Trust (acting through the Trustees) shall have the right to
grant licenses for the use of the Trust Assets on such terms,
subject to Section 7.1, as the Trustees deem appropriate; provided,
however, that the Trust shall not grant any license that would be
deemed a transfer of ownership or abandonment of any Trust Assets
under applicable law. Specifically, any license granted by the
Trust for the use of the Trust Assets consisting of IPR shall
include provisions stating that (a) the licensee agrees to grant
----------------------------
and assign to the Trust all right, title, and interest it may have
------------------------------------------------------------------
or claim in any derivative works of Licensee that are based on or
-----------------------------------------------------------------
incorporate the IPR, and (b) the licensee’s use of the IPR and any
-------------------
goodwill associated therewith shall inure to the benefit of the
Trust.
I believe the requirement to give up all rights to derivative works of
the IETF IPR would be unacceptable to the Debian and FreeBSD
community. They are not in a legal position to grant the Trust all
rights to derivative works of the work that include portions of RFCs.
I assume companies like Sun would find it difficult to grant the IETF
Trust all rights to the Solaris operating system, which include
excerpts from RFCs.
If the IETF, in RFC 3978bis, gave third parties the right to use,
modify and distribute RFCs, this would not be a problem. But RFC 3978
nor the current RFC 3978bis proposal does not grant those rights. The
only mechanism to be able to grant those rights to the Debian and the
FreeBSD community in the future will be to release those works via the
IETF Trust. As described above, the IETF Trust cannot grant a
sub-license without the requiring the above. I believe that
requirement is unacceptable to most members in the IETF community.
To fix this problem, remove the sentences that begin with
"Specifically", thus making the section read:
The Trust (acting through the Trustees) shall have the right to
grant licenses for the use of the Trust Assets on such terms,
subject to Section 7.1, as the Trustees deem appropriate; provided,
however, that the Trust shall not grant any license that would be
deemed a transfer of ownership or abandonment of any Trust Assets
under applicable law.
I believe the issues raised under "Specifically" do not follow from
the first part of the paragraph. They seriously limits the IETF
Trusts capabilities to grant sub-licenses, and should be removed.
The IETF Trust should be able to grant unrestricted sub-licenses.
Finally, less than 4 weeks of time to review a long complicated legal
document is insufficient.
My lawyer is on vacation until after Christmas. Lawyers from
organizations such as the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) cannot be expected to respond
this fast.
This document is given less review time than even some technical
documents.
Given the importance of this work, I believe one year of review would
be more appropriate, if you wanted to guarantee the widest possible
review of relevant and competent people. It takes time to get useful
output from lawyers.
(The "less than 4 weeks" is based on the first announcement posted on
November 11, and the now extended deadline of December 8th.)
Thanks,
Simon
Brian Carpenter <brc(_at_)zurich(_dot_)ibm(_dot_)com> writes:
(posted for Lucy Lynch, IAOC Chair)
All -
The amended language for Section 9.5 (Licensing) of the IETF Trust was
posted to the IETF lists on December 1st and the IETF Trust FAQ has
been updated to reflect the new text (see below). We have also added
additional details on the handling of historical data. As we develop
procedures for the transfer of assets into the IETF Trust and an
inventory of items held by the IETF Trust we will publish them to the
IAOC web site (see: http://koi.uoregon.edu/~iaoc/)
Several people asked for additional time to review our final language,
and with that in mind, I would like to extend this Call one last
time to December 8th, 2005.
Please send comments to: ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org or iaoc.ietf.org
- Thanks
Lucy E. Lynch Academic User Services
Computing Center University of Oregon
llynch @darkwing.uoregon.edu (541) 346-1774
FAQ Updates:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
18. How will the license provisions in Section 9.5 affect the contents
of Standards related documents like RFCs and Internet Drafts.
The IETF IPR rules in force when such documents were published still
apply and Section 9.5 has been updated to reflect community concerns
about the effect of licensing terms. The new text reads:
"9.5 Licenses.
The Trust (acting through the Trustees) shall have the right to grant
licenses for the use of the Trust Assets on such terms, subject to
Section 7.1, as the Trustees deem appropriate; provided, however, that
the Trust shall not grant any license that would be deemed a transfer
of ownership or abandonment of any Trust Assets under applicable law.
Specifically, any license granted by the Trust for the use of the
Trust Assets consisting of IPR other than rights in IETF
standards-related documents (such as RFCs, Internet Drafts and the
like) that have been acquired by the Trust through non-exclusive
licenses granted by their contributors pursuant to the IETF
community-approved procedures currently set forth in RFC 3978, and any
community-approved updates and revisions thereto, shall include
provisions stating that (a) the licensee agrees to grant and assign to
the Trust all right, title, and interest it may have or claim in any
derivative works of licensee that are based on or incorporate the IPR,
and (b) the licensee's use of the IPR and any goodwill associated
therewith shall inure to the benefit of the Trust."
19. Which of the assets listed in Schedule A will be transferred when
the IETF Trust is established? Will the Trustees publish an accounting
of these assets?
All of the Marks, Domain Names, and Current Data listed in Schedule A
will be transferred at closing. In addition, Historical Data that is
currently available from available from the servers currently operated
by or for the IETF Secretariat (i.e. data available on spinning disk)
will also be transferred at closing. The Trustees will inventory all
assets and provide a full accounting to the IETF community. Historical
data which is currently in-accessible will be subject to the
conditions outlined in sub-sections b-g. When and if additional data
becomes available, those assets will transfer to the IETF Trust and
will be added to the inventory.
_______________________________________________
IETF-Announce mailing list
IETF-Announce(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-announce
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
|
|