We have recently been asked permission to republish the TAO with a creative
commons
license, but according to counsel, the current trust agreement does not give
the
trustees the rights to do this.
- Without specific language being added to the trust agreement, we cannot
grant these
types of requests.
I'm looking at section 9.5 of the trust agreement, and I'm looking at
the CC Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 license, and I don't see what's in the
CC license that conflicts with the trust agreement. The TA says that
derivatives belong to the IETF, the CC license says no derivatives, the
TA says that the goodwill belongs to the IETF, the CC license says no
disparaging, which isn't the same thing but leans in the same direction.
If they want a different CC license, that's easy, the answer is no.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/legalcode
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 based on legal counsel review of the
current language
I have more sympathy for this one. Although the renewal fee for a
domain name is usually trivial, what happens if some third party files
a UDRP challenge to or a lawsuit about a domain name that the IETF is
no longer using? Do they have to run up legal bills responding to and
fighting it?
For trademarks, the renewal fee is $400 payable 5 years and 10 years
after registration, and every 10 years after that. But along with the
renewal fee, the registrant has to send in a sworn statement saying
that the mark is still in use in commerce, listing the goods and
services on which it's used, and if requested providing samples. If
the IETF isn't actually using the mark, what is the trust supposed to
do? Furthermore, unlike patent or copyrights, a trademark owner has
to police unauthorized use and challenge it legally, or risk losing
the trademark to what's known as genericide. This is a lot of work
for a trademark you want, and it's absurd for one you don't.
My suggestion would be that the abandonment process take a year,
requiring four quarterly announcements and solicitation of comments to
a public venue such as the IETF general list. After the year,
considering all responses received, if the trustees believe that there
is consensus to abandon, they do so.
If people are concerned that the trustees would do something silly,
the solution is to pick better trustees, not to make more complex
rules.
R's,
John