"Joel M. Halpern" <jmh(_at_)joelhalpern(_dot_)com> writes:
I disagree Simon.
Free Software authors (for any variety of free software I know of) are
free to submit I-Ds describing protocols that they define.
Sure. And some do...
They can not take their licensed code, with license restrictions, and
put it in the RFC.
Right.
The primary reason for this restriction, in my view, is that some of
the licenses out there would actually interfere with commercial
implementations of the RFC if such double-licensing were allowed and
done. And just as we want to allow free implementations of the RFCs,
we also want to allow commercial implementations of RFCs, for a wide
range of commercial goals (just as there are a wide range of free
rules and goals.)
Right.
(However, that doesn't explain why the IETF disallows BSD licensed code
in IETF documents.)
Preventing folks from putting code with non-IETF licenses into RFCs
allows everyone to write RFCs, and allows a wide range of code to be
included in RFCs. Making sure that code which is included in RFCs can
be used by any implementator, as they need to, is important and
useful. Extra licenses distinctly interfere with that.
(We do permit references to licensed code in our documents, including
specific URLs.)
Agreed.
And having a restriction that folks can not take and modify large
blocks of text from the RFC does not prevent them from either writing
RFCs or implementing protocols defined in RFCs.
Right.
Please re-read what I said earlier, because I don't see any disagreement
with what I've claimed before. My claim has been that authors cannot
publish "free", as in licensed under a free software compatible
licensed, documents through the IETF. You explained again that this is
the case, and you gave the reasons for this. So we seem to agree.
/Simon
Yours,
Joel
Simon Josefsson wrote:
Jari Arkko <jari(_dot_)arkko(_at_)piuha(_dot_)net> writes:
Simon,
That's not possible because the IETF policies does not permit free
software compatible licensing on Internet drafts published by the IETF.
...
See RFC 5378:
It is also important to note that additional copyright notices are
not permitted in IETF Documents except ...
...
The IETF copying conditions are not compatible with free software
licenses (modification is not allowed), and additional copyright notices
are not permitted. The vast majority of free software licenses is built
on the concept of copyright notices and requires preserving the
copyright notice.
I agree that there are problematic case, but I believe I hope everyone
realizes this is only the case if the RFC in question has
code. Otherwise it really does not matter. Only some RFCs have code.
I don't realize that, and completely disagree. If you want free
software authors to publish free standards (as in free software
compatible) in the IETF, the IETF needs to allow free software
compatible licensing of their work. Right now, the IETF disallow
standards published through the IETF to be licensed under a free
software compatible license. The only alternative for these authors is
to release their work outside of the IETF. This may result in some free
software authors doesn't bother publishing their work in the IETF
because the licensing models are incompatible.
I support experiments in this space, though. And it would be really
good to get more of the open source folk participate in IETF
specification work. There are many important open source extensions
and protocols that fit in IETF's scope but were never documented. Even
if source code is freely available, you could have several
implementations, commercial vs. open source interoperability issues,
etc.
I agree.
/Simon
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