Subject: Fwd: DISCUSS: draft-ietf-rmt-bb-fec-ldpc

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:05:26 -0500

Here is an extract from a DISCUSS position that I just posted.  I'd 
appreciate any advice that this WG may have on an easy way to resolve 
this situation.

Russ

>   There are code extracts in the document, and the Introduction says:
>   >
>   > A publicly available reference implementation of these codes is
>   > available and distributed under a GNU/LGPL license [8].
>   >
>   It would be desirable to add an explicit statement that the code
>   extracts in the document are directly contributed to the IETF process
>   by their authors (i.e., they are are not subject to LGPL).  To this
>   end, the authors have proposed:
>   >
>   > The code extracts in this document are directly contributed to the
>   > IETF process by their authors, unless otherwise mentionned.
>   >
>   The document authors don't own the copyright of all of the source code,
>   and therefore cannot contribute it to the IETF process. This is the
>   case for Pseudo Random Number Generator in Section 5.6 and the Parity
>   Check Matrix Creation in Section 6.2.  The origin of this source code
>   is clearly stated.  There has been a huge amount of discussion about
>   source code in RFCs, and it is not clear that the rights offered are
>   adequate for a standards track RFC.

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

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:58:29 +0100

> appreciate any advice that this WG may have on an easy way to resolve

My experience with the base64 source code in RFC 4648 was that unless
all the copyright holders of the source code agrees to release the code
under the BCP78 license (which the copyright holders of the base64
source code hasn't done), or the IAB agrees to permit additional
copyright notices (they denied my request), the code has to be removed
from the document.

If it is possible to find all copyright holders of the code and have
them agree with the IETF license, that would solve the problem.  I
wouldn't classify this as easy.  Even if it is possible to find the
person who wrote the code, he might not be the current copyright owner.

For what it's worth, I believe this situation is counter-productive for
the IETF and that it is better to permit example source code in
documents even if they have external copyright notices and licenses.
There is <http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-josefsson-ipr-notices-00> on
this topic.  However the IPR WG did not adopt that as a work item, and
the current RFC 3978bis document doesn't change the current situation.

/Simon