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Re: [Trustees] The Trust Agreement

2013-08-03 01:57:22

On Aug 2, 2013, at 9:58 PM, SM <sm(_at_)resistor(_dot_)net> wrote:

Hello SM,

Hi Chris,
At 13:59 01-08-2013, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
Re the Trust's plenary slides (I was not in Berlin):

I have an allergy to modifying the Trust Agreement unless there's an
overwhelming reason to do so. It was a very hard-won piece of text.

Issue #1
We have recently been asked permission to
republish the TAO with a creative commons
license, but unfortunately the current trust
agreement does not give the trustees the
rights to do this

It doesn't? You have the right to license "existing and future
intellectual property" according to clause 2.1 of the Trust Agreement.
Is there some particular property of the CC license that causes a
problem?

I was told during the JSON chartering that relicensing of the specification 
was not a problem.  I would appreciate some feedback on the questions from 
Brian Carpenter.

I just replied to Brian's email, and also requested that Jorge Contreras (CC'd) 
weigh in with his legal review on this matter.  Please let me know if you need 
any further details.

Issue #3
Once a domain name or trademark is
registered by the trust, it cannot be
abandoned even if it is no longer needed
We must maintain these in perpetuity

IANAL, but it isn't clear to me that clause 9.4 forces you to do this.
It requires you to "take reasonable steps" and to file applications "as
the Trustees deem necessary in order to maintain and protect the Trust
Assets." If you decide (and minute) that it isn't reasonable or necessary
to maintain veryolddomainname.org, where's the crime?

The IAOC decided to register a domain name.  It wasn't well-thought in my 
humble opinion.  Anyway, I don't see why there will ever be a need for a new 
domain.  As for trademarks, well, I don't see why the IETF needs more of them.

While I cannot speculate if we will need to register new domains or trademarks, 
there are some that have already been registered that the trust must continue 
to maintain indefinitely that we would prefer to see lapse.  The current state 
of having to hold onto them indefinitely seems impractical and requires the 
trust to go through efforts to maintain these every few years when they are 
most likely not needed.

Thanks

Chris



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