Reading this, and reading it and reading it again, I think we are going
backwards more than is desirable where code is concerned.
I expect that for some years, the s.6.iii.c clause will be common ie no
derivative works outside the Standards process without obtaining an adequate
licence. The s.5.c clause then explains this as meaning that the IETF Trust
will not grant such rights without obtaining sufficient rights to do so from the
person controlling the pre-5378 material. This seems to trump the additional
rights granted for code in s.4.
Where code is concerned, IETF counsel has stated that RFC3978 already gives us
such rights for code, in response to which Simon Joseffson has pointed out
clauses which might be construed differently to which counsel has agreed it
could be clearer but has not changed his advice (eg IPR WG July 2006).
My lay reading of this new text is that it does not give us an exemption for
code or if it does, then it does so even more obscurely than RFC3978 does and
this I would regard as a retrograde step. It seems to depend on the reading of
"unless and until it has obtained sufficient rights to do so" while the request
to clearly identify pre-5378 material is likely to put the wrong attribution on
code for which the RFC3978 licence currently applies.
My particular concern is MIB modules.
Apologies for the to/cc list, most of which will generate bounces, but the
legally correct thing to do seems to be to leave it unchanged, at least for a
first iteration.
Tom Petch
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ed Juskevicius" <edj(_dot_)etc(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com>
To: <ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>; <ietf-announce(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>;
<wgchairs(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>;
<iab(_at_)iab(_dot_)org>; <iesg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>;
<rfc-editor(_at_)rfc-editor(_dot_)org>
Cc: "Trustees" <trustees(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>; "Contreras,Jorge"
<Jorge(_dot_)Contreras(_at_)wilmerhale(_dot_)com>
Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 6:28 AM
Subject: Last Call for Comments: Proposed work-around to the Pre-5378 Problem
The IETF Trustees met via telechat on February 5th to decide on some
proposed revisions to the "Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents"
policy, based on comments received from the community in the last two
weeks. Please recall this work is being done to provide a work-around for
authors having the 'pre-5378 problem'.
The telechat was productive. The Trustees reached consensus to do the
following:
1) Clarify the copyright text at the beginning of the BSD license in
Section 4.1 to read as follows:
Copyright (c) <insert year> IETF Trust and the persons identified as its
authors. All rights reserved.
2) Replace the word "and" by the word "or" in one place so that the last
sentence of Section 6.c.iii becomes:
Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling the
copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified outside the
IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may not be created
outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format it for publication as
an RFC or to translate it into languages other than English.
3) Fix some nits with respect to the inappropriate use of square brackets
'[' and ']' in two places.
The IETF Trust website has been updated with a new version of the draft
"Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents" including the changes
described in this message. Please look for the documents dated 2009-02-05
at:
http://trustee.ietf.org/policyandprocedures.html .
If you have any final comments on this, please post them before the end of
February 7th. This is the last call for comments.
Regards,
Ed Juskevicius, on behalf of the IETF Trustees
edj(_dot_)etc(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com
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