At 12:57 PM +0100 2/13/09, Simon Josefsson wrote:
I believe it is possible to find proprietary licenses that have other
clauses that render the license incompatible with the IETF Trust
license. So the problem is wider than just free software licenses. I
believe the IETF needs to realize that GPL software runs part of the
Internet and that catering to these licensing needs is as important as
catering to the licensing needs of, say, Microsoft.
I have not seen the IETF spend much time trying to cater to the licensing needs
of, say, Microsoft.
The license compatibility question is more relevant for free software
because people are more conservative in evaluating software licenses in
the free software community compared to the enterprise setting where
licenses are typically only ever evaluated when someone sues or is sued
by someone.
So, in essence, you are saying "because there is a community of developers who
have a particular way of evaluating licenses, the IETF should spend a lot of
time trying to cater to them".
My point has been that triggering this situation works counter to the
goal of the IETF.
Please specifically state "the goal". I believe that you will find that it is,
in fact, not a goal that is widely-held in the IETF.
In a strict setting, it means implementers cannot use
verbatim text from RFCs,
s/implementers/a subset of implementers who have a particular way of evaluating
licenses/
but needs to rewrite the text to avoid re-use
of material under the IETF Trust license. I believe that opens up for
interoperability problems (when a re-written comment is subtly different
from the original meaning, and the comment influences code). If people
decide that this rewriting needs to happen to avoid contamination from
the IETF Trust license, it would also delay getting IETF protocols
deployed.
...by those developers.
This has been my rationale for suggesting that IETF documents should be
licensed under a free software compatible license.
They are already licensed that way, for one common understanding of "free
software compatible license". You have a different understanding for your
purposes. You are (repeatedly) asking us to change our license for your
understanding.
I am aware that
battle is already lost, so I have mixed feelings about discussing this
further.
...so you launched dozens of people with much less understanding than you into
sending one-way comments on the topic. In the future, please check your mix of
feelings more carefully.
Generally, however, I think this question is very different from where
this thread started. It started, as far as I consider, with Stephan
suggesting that free software authors publish "free" (as in licensed
under a free software license) standards in the IETF. That is not
possible
...by your interpretation, but clearly is possible by other people's
interpretation...
, and is unrelated to the question we discuss here. I'm happy
to discuss both questions, but I'm concerned that you and others may
believe that you dispute my first claim by discussing this separate
issue.
With the GPL text, you don't have the copyright, and you don't have a
license that permits modified versions. But you do have the right to
copy it.
With the excerpt from an RFC, you don't have the copyright, and you
don't have a license that permits modified versions. But you do have
the right to copy it - you even have the right to copy pieces of it.
Why are you insisting that the first is perfectly reasonable, and the
second is a show-stopper?
I'm not saying the second is a show stopper. The Internet appears to
work relatively well on most days. However, I insist that it is a
potential impediment and that it works counter to the goals of the IETF.
Your recent actions make it sound like you feel that it is a better use of IETF
time to do work to make a subset of developers who have one particular view of
licensing happy than to develop the technology we are good at. I propose that
the opposite is true.
--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium
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