On 2/3/16, 11:19, "Timothy B. Terriberry" <tterribe(_at_)xiph(_dot_)org> wrote:
Hi Stephan,
Stephan Wenger wrote:
However, it is still a procedural end-run around the currently
in-force IETF position that the IETF reserves the right for itself to
create derivative works from the RFCs it created (my paraphrasing).
I am trying to follow the procedure. RFC 5377 says that authors should
be able to grant these rights. The first example I know of people doing
this was by putting a copyright statement in the XML source (RFC 2629).
But my understanding was that it was later preferred that an additional
grant be added in a section of the draft (see RFC 5215 Section 11). Then
with RFC 6716 the IETF decided it was better to add this grant to the
boilerplate text. Now there are objections to that approach, and we've
come full circle to a copyright statement in the XML source again. As
long as there is some way to do it, then I am happy.
Look, there are countless ways for RFC authors to publish a collection of
characters outside the IETF that also happen to be part of the RFC. For this
particular case, it’s IMO absolutely OK and supported by language and spirit of
the IETF’s copyright policy, not to mention adequate, if you authors take the
RFC once done, strip it of IETF specific boilerplate, (optionally add your own
with whatever term you choose), and put it on the xiph.org webpage.
That works for as long as you are reasonably certain that you authors are the
only ones who made substantial contributions to the text. If, for example, the
IESG put in a 10 page IESG note into the doc, or if the RFC editor rewrites
your whole text, then you probably should get their OK as well. But these are
corner-cases you can control well enough so that I don’t worry about them.
And, it’s your risk and it’s easy enough to mitigate.
You folks can certainly ensure that the text you publish is identical to the
RFC minus boilerplate. You can also make a statement in this regard on the web
page. This is, in my understanding, what was meant in those sections of RFC
5377 that Ron cited.
Note that I do not consider this a “Good Thing” to implement for all, or even a
substantial number, of RFCs. It has the potential to create an unreliable (in
the sense that not all IETF RFCs are present) quasi-mirror of the IETF RFC
documents. But for this particular RFC-to-be, it may be the right thing to do.
Now, such a narrow exception does not solve the open source related
problems, but for that you should really start a debate about the
copyright policy as a whole, because it would be a major change
affecting key tradeoffs of that policy that were deliberated literally
for years.
I am actually personally fine if most authors do not want to grant these
rights. To my mind, they are the ones who wrote the documents, and if
they see these restrictions as beneficial, it's not my place to tell
them they are not allowed to have them.