Subject: ISSUE: incoming 5.6: redefines 'Contributor'

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:14:07 +0100

Section 1 defines 'Contributor' to be:

   b. "Contributor": an individual submitting a Contribution.

Section 5.6 says:

   With respect to each Contribution, each Contributor represents that
   to the best of his or her knowledge and ability:

   a. The Contribution properly acknowledges all major Contributors. A
      major Contributor is any person who has materially or
      substantially contributed to the Contribution.

There is a corner case here.  If someone who didn't submit a
Contribution did substantially contribute to the Contribution, is she a
Contributor or not?  (major or otherwise)

Given the definitions above, I think it could be argued either way.  The
problem seems to be that section 5.6 slightly re-defines the Contributor
term, or at least it introduce a new term 'major Contributor' that isn't
a strict subset of 'Contributor'.

I believe this part of the rules could become problematic in case
someone who submits a draft copies text written by someone else who
don't participate in the IETF process.

(This is complicated by section 1 being informative, thus there is no
normative definition on 'Contributor' at all in the document.  I hope my
other post will solve this.)

/Simon

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From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 08:55:28 -0500

It does seem that section 5.6 uses "Contributor" both to mean the named
authors and to mean anyone who contributes text.  After all, someone who
contributes text is not responsible for ensuring that the the
acknowledgments in the resulting document are correct.

Joel

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From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:18:16 +0100

> acknowledgments in the resulting document are correct.
I think this correctly identifies an issue.

In 5.6, one could easily imagine that a major contributor is someone who 
has never contributed directly to the IETF, but has done a major piece 
of work that the Contributor (as defined here) has further processed 
into something that he contributes to the IETF.

What other term can be used? "contributor" (lower case), "participant in 
the work".....????

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From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 09:44:43 -0500

Distinguish between "contributor" and "submitter"?

swb

Excerpts from Harald Alvestrand on Mon, Nov 26, 2007 03:18:16PM +0100:
> has never contributed directly to the IETF, but has done a major piece of 
> work that the Contributor (as defined here) has further processed into 
> something that he contributes to the IETF.
>

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 09:54:14 -0500

--On Monday, 26 November, 2007 15:18 +0100 Harald Alvestrand
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> In 5.6, one could easily imagine that a major contributor is
> someone who has never contributed directly to the IETF, but
> has done a major piece of work that the Contributor (as
> defined here) has further processed into something that he
> contributes to the IETF.
> 
> What other term can be used? "contributor" (lower case),
> "participant in the work".....????

I recommend against being subtle here, as doing so will just
contribute (sic) to confusion.  Case distinctions are too subtle
and every participant in a WG --and, by the end of IETF Last
Call, everyone who reads the draft-- is a "participant in the
work".  

Scott Brim's "submitter" would be ok if we don't get tangled up
elsewhere (e.g., the I-D submission tools recognize only one
submitter per instance of an I-D, for reasons that are probably
obvious.  My guess that we will get tangled up.

If that doesn't work, can we define something like "Primary
Contributor(s)" and "Secondary Contributor(s)" or "Direct
Contributor" and "Indirect Contributor" in a very precise way
and then indicate that "Contributor", used by itself, is a
synonym for the first member of whichever pair is chosen and fix
text accordingly.  

    john

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From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:06:58 +0100

This issue is assigned #1515.

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From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:19:51 +0100

I believe the concept that is significant here is 'Author' or 'Copyright
Owner' rather then 'major Contributor'.

We want Contributors to be sure that she has the right (from the author
or copyright holder of some text) to share the text under the IETF
license.

I don't think the IETF need to _require_ that all copyright holders are
acknowledged.  There may be some advantages to require that though: if
we do it, the IETF can blame the Contributor if someone external later
steps up and claims they own text in some RFC, and can show that the
Contributor copied her text into the Contribution.

That isn't a perfect guarantee though: even if the external person is
acknowledged in the contribution, that doesn't mean the external person
has agreed to our policy.  She can still rightly own text in an RFC, and
have a reasonable case to sue anyone distributing the document.

To solve this with better guarantees, you need signed copyright
transfers for all bits that goes into a document.

/Simon

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:46:26 +0100

> or copyright holder of some text) to share the text under the IETF
I believe the text in section 5.6 (a) was intended to address the moral
duty to acknowledge significant contributors, not to address the issue
of copyrights.

I believe the text in 5.6 (c):

   c. There are no limits to the Contributor's ability to make the
      grants, acknowledgments and agreements herein that are reasonably
      and personally known to the Contributor.

was intended to address the issue of whether or not the Contributor is
able to make the contribution, including the issue of whether or not the
Contributor has agreement of the copyright holder (if needed).

                 Harald

---

From: "TS Glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 08:58:31 -0800

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Simon Josefsson" <[email-masked]>
To: "Scott Brim" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "Harald Alvestrand" <[email-masked]>; "Joel M. Halpern" 
<[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 8:19 AM
Subject: Re: ISSUE: incoming 5.6: redefines 'Contributor'

> or copyright holder of some text) to share the text under the IETF

Sharing Text for republication right?

> acknowledged.

I do... and that is the issue of properly representing who the Individuals 
representing they have legal power of attorney for are. The reason is that 
the new ruling in the Lorraine v Markel case in the US changed the bar 
height for unauthenticated email based transfers of IP ownership making both 
the BCP78 and BCP79  document ineffective for refusing to meet those legaol 
hurdles before the US Courts now.

> There may be some advantages to require that though: if
>>> of

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:00:29 +0100

> duty to acknowledge significant contributors, not to address the issue

I think the issues are related.  The copyright holder is the moral owner
of some text.  I think 'major Contributor' was a poor term for what
should have been the moral copyright owner of the significant text.
'Author' seems like a better term to designate the initial writer of
text, and (s)he should be acknowledged.  'Copyright Owner' may be more
precise, but is complicated by the fact that copyright can be
transferred.

I'm not sure whether the intention is to credit the initial author or
the current copyright owner, or both.  Clearing that up may simplify
things.

Another corner case is if the author of some piece of text does not want
to be credited in the document, but still has given the Contributor the
necessary rights to use the contribution in a document (possibly by
having written the text in an earlier IETF document).  That's why I
think the IETF doesn't have to _require_ that all authors are
acknowledged.  I think there are examples of where significant text has
been written by people who later does not want to be associated with the
final product.  That may be a separate issue, though, but could warrant
more discussion.

> Contributor has agreement of the copyright holder (if needed).

Agreed.

/Simon

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From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:04:02 +0100

> precise, but is complicated by the fact that copyright can be
Could you please refrain from inventing terms like "moral copyright owner"?

The term "copyright owner" is a term of law. While morals and law may be
related, I don't think the relation is simple enough that we should try
to mix the concepts.

Either talk about copyright or talk about moral rights.

             Harald

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From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:14:03 +0100

> Either talk about copyright or talk about moral rights.

My point is that the document is unclear on which is intended.  Either
you acknowledge the author who has the moral rights to the text, or
(when they are different) the copyright owner, or both.

Which does 'major Contributor' refer to?

/Simon

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From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:25:56 -0700

> should have been the moral copyright owner of the significant text.

It's not clear to me what it means to own some text.

> precise, but is complicated by the fact that copyright can be

I too prefer "Author".

> the current copyright owner, or both.  Clearing that up may simplify

Yes that would help.

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

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From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:51:31 +0100

> Which does 'major Contributor' refer to?
My interpretation has always been that this was about moral rights -
those people who deserve to be acknowledged as major contributors to the
work, no matter which rights they have chosen to retain. (remember that
most employees assign copyright to their employers, and US federal
govermment employees release their copyright into the public domain.)

If the rest of the WG can agree with that, we can invite suggestions for
better language.

               Harald

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From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:12:36 -0500

I am not sure I follow your reasoning.

The distinction that matters here, and it is admittedly subjective, is
whether an individual wrote a significant chunk of text.

Many folks write a paragraph in the working group email discussion which
ends up in a document.  We don't acknowledge each of them individually.
 (We usually acknowledge the working group as a whole, for text and for
conceptual contributions, document improvement, etc.)

So I am afraid that "author" would take us down an impractical slope.

Yours,
Joel

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:29:41 +1300

I think "indirect contributor" describes the issue very well.

Please compare draft-ietf-rmt-bb-fec-ldpc-06.txt and
draft-ietf-rmt-bb-fec-ldpc-07.txt if you want a case in
point. The -06 included code extracts attributed to
Radford Neal, who was not a listed author. It wasn't at
all clear to me (as Gen-ART reviewer) whether that code was
an IETF Contribution under today's rules. Radford was
clearly not a Contributor (and therefore not bound in any
way by our rules) but his code was in there. I can only describe
him as an indirect (in fact, involuntary) contributor.

Fortunately the authors were able to get his agreement to
explicitly contribute the code, and that is now stated
explicitly in the -07 draft. So we end up with this text:

    A publicly available reference implementation of these codes is
    available and distributed under a GNU/LGPL license [LDPC-codec].
    Besides, the code extracts included in this document (except
    Appendix A that is only provided as an example) are directly
    contributed to the IETF process by the authors of this document and
    by Radford M. Neal.

I suspect that the incoming draft needs to make it clear that the
IETF cannot presume that it has rights in indirect contributions,
that indirect (in fact, involuntary) contributors are not bound
by IETF rules, and that submitters have the responsibility to sort
this out (as they willingly did in my example case).

     Brian

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From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:36:10 -0500

> I think "indirect contributor" describes the issue very well.

works for me