Subject: Request for comments on proposed changes to the IETF Trust Legal Provisions (TLP)

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:35:18 -0500

Greetings;

The Trustees are proposing additional changes to the Legal Provisions  
Relating to IETF Documents effective September 12, 2009 (TLP 3.0).  
This is a formal request for community review, with a 30 day review  
period ending on December 27, 2009

The additional changes proposed here (TLP 4.1) are A.) at the request  
of the Alternate Stream managers regarding the treatment of 'code  
components' and B.) at the request of the community regarding the  
addition of Alternate Stream managers to the warranty disclaimer.  
These changes result from the discussion of the proposed changes  
announced on 23 October, which are included in this document for  
review as section C. PDF versions and differences between the existing  
TLP are available at http://trustee.ietf.org/policyandprocedures.html.

A.)  Elimination of BSD licensing for Alternate Stream documents

This action requires revisions to four sections: 4.c, 8.e, 8.f, and  
8.g as follows: [Note *** indictes begin and end added text)

Section 4.	License to Code Components.

c.	License.    In addition to the licenses granted under Section 3,  
unless one of the legends contained in Section 6.c.i or 6.c.ii is  
included in an IETF Document containing Code Components, such Code  
Components are also licensed to each person who wishes to receive such  
a license on the terms of the “Simplified BSD License", as described  
below.  If a licensee elects to apply the BSD License to a Code  
Component, then the additional licenses and restrictions set forth in  
Section 3 and elsewhere in these Legal Provisions shall not apply  
thereto.  ***Note that this license is specifically offered for IETF  
Documents and may not be available for Alternate Stream documents. See  
Section 8 for licensing information for the appropriate stream.***

Section 8.	Application to non-IETF Stream Documents

[Note:  This language added to IAB, IRTF and Indep Submissions  
paragraphs:
	***Section 4 of these Legal Provisions shall not apply to documents  
in the [Stream], and all references to Section 4 hereof shall be  
disregarded with respect to documents in the [Stream]***]

	e.	IAB Document Stream.   Pursuant to Section 11 of RFC 5378, the IAB  
requested, as of April 4, 2008, that the IETF Trust act as licensing  
administrator for the IAB Document Stream and that these Legal  
Provisions be applied to documents submitted and published in the IAB  
Document Stream following the Effective Date of RFC 5378.  ***Section  
4 of these Legal Provisions shall not apply to documents in the IAB  
Document Stream, and all references to Section 4 hereof shall be  
disregarded with respect to documents in the IAB Document Stream***  
*** pursuant to [Refefrence] published on [DATE]***.  [Note: this last  
addition reflects the authority for the Elimination of BSD licensing  
for the IAB]

	f.	Independent Submission Stream.   Pursuant to RFC [xxxx] published  
on [DATE], the manager of the Independent Submission Stream has  
requested that the IETF Trust act as licensing administrator for the  
Independent Submission Stream and that these Legal Provisions be  
applied to documents submitted and published in the Independent  
Submission Stream following [DATE].  *** Section 4 of these Legal  
Provisions shall not apply to documents in the Independent Submission  
Stream, and all references to Section 4 hereof shall be disregarded  
with respect to documents in the Independent Submission Stream.***

	g.	IRTF Document Stream.   Pursuant to RFC [xxxx] published on  
[DATE], the manager of the IRTF Document Stream has requested that the  
IETF Trust act as licensing administrator for the IRTF Document Stream  
and that these Legal Provisions be applied to documents submitted and  
published in the IRTF Document Stream following [DATE].  ***Section 4  
of these Legal Provisions shall not apply to documents in the IRTF  
Document Stream, and all references to Section 4 hereof shall be  
disregarded with respect to documents in the IRTF Document Stream.***

B.)  Addition of Alternate Stream managers to warranty disclaimer

This action requires revision to two sections, 7.a and 8.c.ii.

7.	Terms Applicable to All IETF Documents

ALL DOCUMENTS AND THE INFORMATION CONTAINED THEREIN ARE PROVIDED ON AN  
"AS IS" BASIS AND THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS  
OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST, THE  
INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE *** AND ANY APPLICABLE MANAGERS OF  
ALTERNATE STREAM DOCUMENTS, AS DEFINED IN SECTION 8 BELOW***, DISCLAIM  
ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY  
WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION THEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY  
RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A  
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

8.	Application to non-IETF Stream Documents
c.	Alternate Stream License.

ii.	Each occurrence of the term “IETF Contribution” and “IETF  
Document” in these Legal Provisions shall be read to mean a  
Contribution or document in such Alternate Stream, as the case may  
be.  ***The disclaimer in Section 7.a of these Legal Provisions shall  
apply to the manager of such Alternate Stream as defined in RFC 4844  
as though such manager were expressly listed in Section 7.a.***

C.) The 23 October announced changes

The 23 October changes are required based upon a request from the RFC  
Editor on behalf of the Independent Submissions Stream, and from the  
IRTF Steering Group (IRSG) on behalf of the IRTF Stream (Alternate  
Streams) that the IETF Trust act as the license administrators for the  
RFCs produced by their streams.  The basic intent of these changes is  
to both make changes necessary to accept these new streams, and to  
make it possible for these new streams to operate under "Postel  
Rules."  Additional minor changes are sought by the Trustees to  
clarify language in TLP 3.0.

The Trustees believe the following changes are necessitated by the  
request of the RFC Editor and IRSG,

a.  Section 1. -- eliminated reference to "IETF Standards Process" to  
broaden scope for Alternate Streams.  Also added a sentence  
acknowledging the addition of Alternate Streams.

b. Section 6.a -- deleted "to IETF" so that this legend can be used in  
Alternate Stream documents in a less confusing way.

c. Section 7.f -- removed references to IETF Standards Process to  
accommodate Alternate Stream usage.

d. Section 8.a -- this paragraph provides some background/context for  
readers who have not been following the Alternate Stream discussion.   
It references RFC 4844 (which defines the Alternate Streams).

e. Section 8.b -- this paragraph says that Alternate Stream managers  
(as defined in 4844) can request that the IETF Trust act as the  
licensing administrator for their Alternate Stream documents, and that  
the Trust will do this, acting in accordance with their request and  
the Trust's legal obligations.

f. Section 8.c -- this paragraph contains the basic license grants for  
the Alternate Streams.  Essentially, Alternate Stream contributions  
are licensed TO the Trust on the terms of 5378, and are licensed BY  
the Trust on the terms of the TLP (subject to any exceptions noted in  
later paragraphs).

g. Section 8.d -- IMPORTANT:  clarifies that Alternate Stream  
contributors must ensure that they have all necessary rights to make  
their contributions, including the right to contribute previously- 
published material.  There is no pre-5378 legend/carve-out for  
Alternate Stream documents, and authors of contributions in these  
streams take full responsibility for the entire contents of their  
contributions, whether or not they re-use older material.  This is a  
different approach than for IETF Contributions, which have the  
pre-5378 legend escape-valve for older material.

h. Section 8.e - g -- there is a separate paragraph for each of the  
IAB, Independent and IRTF streams.  Each of their "requests" to the  
Trust is made in a separate document and may have a different  
effective date, so it seemed cleaner to treat them separately.  In  
each of these paragraphs there is a clause stating that there are no  
limits on making derivative works of these documents unless specific  
no-derivatives legends are included.

The changes requested by the Trustees are as follows:

i. Section 2.c -- bug fix:  first reference was to contributions and  
documents, second was only to documents.  "Contributions" was added  
for parallel construction.

j. Sections 4.e, 6.b and 6.d -- added "Simplified" before "BSD  
License" for consistent usage.

The proposed revisions as TLP 4.0 are in rtf, pdf and doc formats and  
located at:  http://trustee.ietf.org/policyandprocedures.html under  
Draft Policies and Procedures for IETF Documents. There is also a 3.0  
diff file in doc and pdf formats at the same location.

The discussion of these proposed changes is taking place on the TLP- 
interest mailing list.  One may subscribe to the TLP mailing list at: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tlp-interest

If during the 30 day community review period the proposal is revised,  
the Trust may withdraw or modify the proposal, publish it and reset  
the counter to begin a new 30 day review period before the comment  
period is over.

If textual changes are needed after the 30 day community review  
period, the Trust may modify the proposal, publish it and announce a  
14 day review period.

Please accept this message as a formal request by the IETF Trustees  
for your review and feedback on the proposed revision to the TLP  
document. The comment period will end on December 27, 2009.

Regards, and thanks in advance,

Marshall Eubanks
IETF Trust Chair