Subject: Transfers of copyright versus licensing

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 15:49:18 -0500

Hi.

I made a some related comments during the IPR WG meeting on 
Monday about copyright transfers.  It is clear from a few 
in-the-hall comments that my intent was not understood, so I'm 
going to try to clarify in this note.

The IETF's traditional approach toward documents, even 
standards-track ones, has been to leave copyright ownership in 
the hands of the original authors and editors but to demand, for 
the IETF and ISOC, such rights as we believe are required to get 
our work done.  That list of rights has expanded over the years, 
and some recent suggestions have been seen as wanting to expand 
it further.

An expanding list of requirements for releases/ permissions/ 
licenses to the IETF and their provisions creates an inherent 
problem, which is that earlier documents do not have same set of 
them as later documents.

Most other standards bodies have an opposite approach to the 
problem.   They claim, explicitly and with agreement from 
participants as a condition for making it in the door, either...

	* that the participants (and their organizations, if
	relevant) derive sufficient benefits from participation
	that anything written, said, or otherwise contributed is
	a work for hire and hence belongs to the standards body
	from the moment of writing or utterance, or
	
	* at the point that a document becomes a formal part of
	the work program, explicit transfers of copyright are
	required from all authors and editors.

They then guarantee some rights back to the authors according to 
their discretion or rules (sometimes that is a null set).  If 
new  circumstances come along, they can negotiate about any of 
their documents because they own them -- there is no question 
about what to do about old documents, authors who can't be 
found, etc.

It is not productive to debate the legality or morality of that 
approach on this list.  I am just reporting it.

I _hate_ the idea of the IETF concluding that it needs to move 
toward that model.   But, if we are going to conclude every year 
or so that we need a few more rights or a few more releases, or 
even to debate whether or not we do, there will be a point at 
which it is simply easier, and better for all concerned, for the 
IETF to own the documents and license rights back to the authors 
as appropriate, rather than continuing to try to figure out how 
to apply rules retroactively or avoid the need to do so.

I think we need to start examining whether we have already 
passed that point.

    john

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From: Bill Sommerfeld <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 15:41:32 -0600

I've seen indications (in the context of an open source project) that
joint copyright ownership might be legally possible.

In other words, both the contributor *and* the recipient would retain full
rights to do whatever they wanted with the text.

Again, don't shoot the messenger.

					- Bill

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 22:02:39 +0100

> rights to do whatever they wanted with the text.

Scenario: I write a spec. The IETF puts the ISOC copyright on it.
I invert a couple of bytes in my version and republish.
Interoperability, anybody?

    Brian

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From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 23:56:13 +0100

> Interoperability, anybody?

What exactly is your point?

Are you saying that simply because an author invert a few bytes in
their document and publish it somewhere (!= IETF, I presume), there
will be interoperability issues?

I'd like to hold implementors of IETF protocols to a higher standard
than becoming confused over something like that.

Non-IETF or non-technical people (which DO read RFCs) may be confused,
but fortunately they rarely implement the protocols, so I believe the
practical protocol-interoperability issues, when RFCs are freely
modifiable, is likely zero.

Remember that there is nothing the IETF can do to prevent the
possibility that non-IETF-members become confused -- everyone can
author a document and entitle it "RFC 2822".  Make it look credible,
and you will fool someone.

Looking forwards to the IPR meeting minutes,
Simon

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From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 17:57:29 -0500

> Hi.

Hi John.  Two things ... 

> 	required from all authors and editors.

Could you be more specific about which SDOs do this?

> to apply rules retroactively or avoid the need to do so.

That sounds good but you also suggested going the other way, and
having the IETF/ISOC gain just the rights they need, and refer all
queries to the author.  If you _hate_ your first idea (which a large
number of the people in the room supported, surprisingly), what do you
think of your second?

swb

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 04:33:20 +0100

> What exactly is your point?

There was some late-in-the-week sloppiness in my message.

I invert a couple of bytes in the protocol format defined
in the spec. It won't interoperate with the format defined
in the RFC.

     Brian

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From: Bill Sommerfeld <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2005 11:13:15 -0500

> Interoperability, anybody?

ok, now I'm confused; how is this any different from the universe 
described in John Klensin's note:

   our work done.

i.e.., in the universe as described by Klensin, the original author is 
already able to fork the protocol.

I agree with you that forking of protocols is something which should be
discouraged.

						- Bill

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 15:38:35 +0100

> already able to fork the protocol.

Undoubtedly, but s/he can't call it an IETF RFC, which the "free document"
approach would allow, as far as I understood the proposal.

    Brian