"John" == John C Klensin <john-ietf(_at_)jck(_dot_)com> writes:
John> Tobias,
John> IANAL (other disclaimers incorporated by hand-waving), but a
John> plain-English reading of this indicated that the text gives
John> permission to modify the text of the template itself. That
John> raises all of the issues that caused us to try to make
John> enforceable copyright claims on the RFC series in the first
John> place-- someone could use such derived text (maliciously or
John> not) to mislead others about IETF statements, intent, and
John> requirements.
I'd like to specifically disagree with John and say that I'd like to see
the trust be very liberal in grating license exceptions when the IETF
purposes are served.
There are significant costs to asking the trust to be more liberal when
we discover that our needs are not met by our licensing.
I have always disagreed that there is significant harm that will happen
if people modify IETF documents especially if those modifications are
labeled.
Especially when the IETF's purposes are served by allowing people to
modify and fill in templates I hope that we can choose to be liberal.
Examples of things that might require modification of templates:
* Turning a template into an HTML web form
* Turning a template into some sort of wizard to collect the
information
* Including a template in an open-source product that requires a liberal
license.
I believe the IETF's purposes are typically served by all of the above,
so I believ it is important to be very liberal in our licensing here.
--Sam