ietf
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [Trustees] Last Call for Comments: Proposed work-around to thePre-5378 Problem

2009-02-09 18:35:22

On Feb 9, 2009, at 5:26 PM, Thomas Narten wrote:

Ok, I think (hope) I understand the intention now.  How about the
following as a friendly clarifying amendment to the proposed text:

Sorry, I'm still not happy with the proposed text. I think it is still
not clear. It is the simple English I have issue with. But maybe I
have just been looking at this too hard for too long now. :-(

NEW PROPOSED

c. Derivative Works and Publication Limitations.  If a Contributor
desires to limit the right to make modifications and derivative works
of,

Right. This presumably handles the case where the contributer doesn't
allow anything but publication as an ID. i.e., case (i)

or to publish,

Publish as what? an RFC?

Also, now we are already getting ambiguous. I assume that "limit the
right to" prepends this, but this is not 100% clear. Maybe the
contributer only desires to "publish" the document. :-)

an IETF Contribution that is not a standards-track
document or, in most cases, a working group document,

I'm not sure why this text is needed actually. This text is really
supposed to point out that documents that don't allow the IETF the
right to produce derivative works can't normally be WG documents or
standards track. But that is an implication of the contributer
choosing to limit derivative works. Normally, the contributor is NOT
submiting a document with such a restriction because they wish that it
not be standards track or a WG document.

This clause has been in the document for sometime. I wonder if it is
even needed at all to address the motivation for using the modified
boilerplate.

then one of the
notices in clause (i) or (ii) below must be included.

For the above text to be more clear, I'd suggest something like:

NEW PROPOSED

   c. Derivative Works and Publication Limitations.  If a Contributor
      desires to limit the right to make modifications and derivative

s/desires/needs/

I don't think that "desires" is appropriate here - as John pointed out, the contributor has no discretion here, except for their judgement as to whether rights are available.

Regards
Marshall




      works of an IETF Contribution, then one of the notices in
      clause (i) or (ii) below must be included. Note that a
      contribution with such a clause cannot become a Standards Track
      document or, in most cases, a working group document,

IMO, the specific clauses (i) and (ii) make it amply clear why one
would choose one or the other, so no additional elaboration is needed
above.

The rest of the proposed text:

        If an IETF Contribution contains pre-5378 Material as to which
        the IETF Trust has not been granted, or may not have been
        granted, the necessary permissions to allow modification of
        such pre-5378 Material outside the IETF Standards Process,
        then the notice in clause (iii) may be included by the
        Contributor of such IETF Contribution to limit the right to
        make modifications to such pre-5378 Material outside the IETF
        Standards Process.

is OK with me.

Thomas
_______________________________________________
Trustees mailing list
Trustees(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/trustees

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>