Subject: WG meeting decisions for confirmation on the list

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 05:30:54 +0100

During the IPR WG's meeting in San Diego, the following proposed consensus 
calls were made. The disposition is noted below.

As is written in IETF procedure, these consensus calls have to be confirmed 
on the mailing list; I am hereby asking you for such confirmation.

In the tradition of "don't make more work than necessary", we'd like to 
make two passes at this:

- If someone believes that a consensus stated in this list does not 
represent a consensus of the working group, please state so to the list in 
a note with the subject line "DISCUSS:" and the name of the issue. If two 
people agree that an item needs discussion, the issue will be open for 
discussion on the list. We may also assign it an issue number in the 
tracker.

- If we have issues that prove to need discussion, we will make a separate 
consensus call in email for each issue as needed. For issues where there 
haven't been two people stating that we need discussion, we will conclude 
that the mailing list agrees with the consensus of the physical working 
group meeting.

Note that this is not a call on the text of the current draft. That will be 
done separately, after the draft has been updated according to these 
consensus calls.

BIG ISSUES CALLED, OUTBOUND:

1) Rights normally granted: Cite all, translate all, change code
For: 12, Against: 0: Confused: 1

2) Granting of extra rights (within those granted to the IETF Trust): By 
who?
- In special cases: IETF Trust, as requested by IESG or IAB
- In altering the general case: IETF consensus process
Yes: 14, No: 0, Don't know: 0

SMALL ISSUES CALLED, OUTBOUND:

3) What's the appropriate definition for "code" vs "non-code"? 3 
alternatives
- Markers in the text: 1
- Rules to apply: 0
- Hybrid approach: Rules, with markers that can be used if desired: 17

4) Do we mention independent submission?
Consensus is NO. 3978bis will reflect the same decision.

5) Language about copyright notices
Wordsmithed result: "Documents should not contain text that seems to 
restrict the IETF-granted rights to use the documents". Such text may be 
license text or copyright text beyond the standard IETF text.

6) How do we handle old RFCs?
The IETF Trust is in the process of obtaining the equivalent rights in old 
RFCs as in new ones (where possible). The IPR WG applauds the effort, and 
has no need to do anything.

ISSUES CALLED, INBOUND

7) Approach proposed and accepted:
- Two major sections, Philosophy and Boilerplate
- Scott Bradner will write the first section; Jorge will write the second
- The IETF Trust will have the explicit right to approve minor boilerplate 
changes consistent with philosophical goals, to handle special cases and 
minor errors

8) The function of providing publication of outside documents with a NDW 
clause is useful, and should continue.
Yes: 9 No: 1 Don't know: 0

_______________________________________________
Ipr-wg mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg

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From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 04:42:22 -0500

> discussion on the list. We may also assign it an issue number in the 

Clarification comes before discussion ...

> license text or copyright text beyond the standard IETF text.

How does this interact with rfc3978 section 5.2 (derivative works
limitation in status)?  

swb

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From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 10:48:06 +0100

--On 20. november 2006 04:42 -0500 Scott W Brim <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> represent a consensus of the working group, please state so to the list
>> in  a note with the subject line "DISCUSS:" and the name of the issue.
>> If two  people agree that an item needs discussion, the issue will be
>> open for  discussion on the list. We may also assign it an issue number
>> in the  tracker.
>

This was in the minutes, but perhaps not too clear.

In a separate item: the WG thinks that NDW documents are useful, and should 
continue to be possible; the outgoing rights can't be bigger than the 
incoming rights. Details to be worked out... but if the NDW clause 
restricts outgoing rights, that's clearly a desired outcome.

              Harald

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:25:48 +0100

Harald Alvestrand wrote:
> In a separate item: the WG thinks that NDW documents are useful, and 
> should continue to be possible; the outgoing rights can't be bigger than 
> the incoming rights. Details to be worked out... but if the NDW clause 

As should be clear but maybe isn't, NDW would still not be acceptable for
standards track (or BCP) documents.

     Brian

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From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 05:12:29 -0800

Then you limit the IETF to only using IP that it controls and that is
blatantly silly Brian.

Todd Glassey

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From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 17:20:09 +0100

>> restrict the IETF-granted rights to use the documents". Such text may
>> be license text or copyright text beyond the standard IETF text.

The "NDW is evil" side is clear, but could an author use CC-BY-SA ?  

I vaguely recall that John was also interested in CC-BY-ND, but maybe I
confuse that with something else he wrote here months ago.

Frank

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From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 22:19:37 +0100

> confuse that with something else he wrote here months ago.

It's clear (at least it was stated again in San Diego, and nobody 
disagreed) that an author can make a separate copy of his (sole) 
contribution and license that under another license (such as GPL, CC-BY-SA 
or CC-BY-ND) if he wants to, in addition to the copy he licenses to the 
IETF under IETF rules.

Comparing the specific terms of CC-BY-SA and CC-BY-ND to the desired 
properties of the licensing to or from the IETF to the community is a 
matter for lawyers - which we are leaving out of this draft text.

                      Harald

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From: "David B Harrington" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 19:07:19 -0500

These look reasonable to me.

dbh 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Harald Alvestrand [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2006 11:31 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: WG meeting decisions for confirmation on the list
>

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 09:27:57 +0100

Harald Alvestrand wrote:
> contribution and license that under another license (such as GPL, 
> CC-BY-SA or CC-BY-ND) if he wants to, in addition to the copy he 
> licenses to the IETF under IETF rules.

I want to argue that a bit more closely to make sure it really is
clear.

If I write a piece of code and first insert it in an I-D and then
post the I-D under standard IPR conditions, and next day insert
the same piece of code in an open source package, those two
copies will be under two different IPR regimes. The first copy
is under the IETF regime and the second copy is under the
open source regime. And there should be no problem for either side.

So, it's vital that this fork occurs *before* the code is placed
under an open source license, IMO.

     Brian

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From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 12:45:08 +0100

> under an open source license, IMO.

Nit: I think I disagree on the timing - the open source license is not a 
copyright assignment, so the author still has the right to submit the code 
to the IETF.
But he can't take anyone else's incompatibly licensed code and hand it to 
the IETF, so accepting patches that are copyright and incompatibly licensed 
will create a tangled mess; handing off the "IETF copy" first avoids this.

                    Harald

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 13:08:39 +0100

Harald Alvestrand wrote:
> 
> 
> --On 21. november 2006 09:27 +0100 Brian E Carpenter 
> <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> copyright assignment, so the author still has the right to submit the 
> code to the IETF.

Yes, the key issue is that you can't take code from an open source
*distribution* into an I-D; you are correct that the restriction
is on the fork being *logically* prior to the open source license,
not on the chronological sequence.

> But he can't take anyone else's incompatibly licensed code and hand it 
> to the IETF, so accepting patches that are copyright and incompatibly 
> licensed will create a tangled mess; handing off the "IETF copy" first 
> avoids this.

Agreed.

     Brian

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 13:47:20 +0100

Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]> writes:

>> Nit: I think I disagree on the timing - the open source license is
>> not a copyright assignment, so the author still has the right to
>> submit the code to the IETF.
>

That assumes the I-D author isn't the author of the code in the
particular distribution.  That assumption doesn't hold generally.

If an I-D author wrote the code for a particular project, and still
holds the copyright to the code, he can include it in an IETF I-D
while complying to the IETF IPR rules.

This is essentially dual-licensing.  It happens often in the free
software world.  For example, Mozilla is tri-licensed, under the GPL,
the LGPL _or_ the MPL.

It even seems possible that an I-D author contact and asks an author
of some free code found in a project and asks whether he would agree
to submit the code to the IETF, and make them available under the IETF
IPR rules.  Doing so would improve many IETF documents, because free
example code can often be available.

/Simon

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 09:10:32 +0100

> example code can often be available.

Simon,

I believe we are in agreement. It just needs to be phrased carefully
in the final document, to ensure that authors are sure of the sequence
to be followed.

     Brian

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2006 14:18:55 +0100

> licenses to the IETF under IETF rules.

One practical case isn't exactly a "separate copy", it is the XML
source for xml2rfc, example:

<!-- no I-D - >
    <?rfc private="Creative Commons License:      Attributions + ShareAlike" ?>
    <?rfc header="Interim draft" ?>
    <?rfc footer="draft-foo-bar-02" ?>
<! - no I-D -->

In the working draft (-03) I'd use "-->" instead of "- >",  and
"<!--" instead of "<! -" resulting in a file without IETF-legalese.

It has no interesting code, only some ABNF, and of course anybody
is free to use or adapt it as it pleases them.  But they're IMO
not free to _sell_ modified versions via SSOs (*) like say ISO, if
the only way to get their modification is to buy it back from them.

Not without the explicit permission of the authors.  Some authors
likely don't care, others might be happy if IASA manages it, and a
third group might prefer to decide it personally on a case by case
base.

> Comparing the specific terms of CC-BY-SA and CC-BY-ND to the
> desired properties of the licensing to or from the IETF to the
> community is a matter for lawyers - which we are leaving out of
> this draft text.

It's what I'm interersted in.  I've identified the only SHOULD as
"CC-BY", but I'm not sure about the CC-BY-SA.

The CC-BY-ND case is less interesting from my POV, but I'm still
curious how e.g. the RFC with SHA-code works.  Blow by blow and in
a language I can understand, please.  Was the SHA-RFC "legal", and
if it was legal, why, and what does this mean for readers, can they
just implement SHA-256, or even <shudder /> modify SHA-256, no
matter what NIST says ?  Can they also do it while staying in Iran ?

Frank

*: SSO = standards selling organizations