Subject: Boilerplate text

From: "Bill Fenner" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 00:17:55 +0100

I'm trying to apply the boilerplate text to a 1id-guidelines update.
Was the word "the" left off between the copyright year and "IETF
Trust" on purpose?  i.e., is "Copyright 2008 IETF Trust and Bill
Fenner.  All rights reserved." the intended usage?

Here is a new section 3 for 1id-guidelines:

3.  IPR-Related Notices Required in Internet-Drafts

   All Internet-Drafts must have the following intellectual property
   rights (IPR) and copyright statements on the first page:

   "This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF pursuant to, and in full
   conformance with, the provisions of BCP 79.

   Copyright [year] IETF Trust and [the listed authors].  All rights
   reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.

   (See Trust Guidance [TrustGuidance] section 6a. and 6c.)

   [year] in the copyright statement should be replaced by the year of
   publication of the document, and [the listed authors] should be
   replaced by the authors of the document.  Normal english list form
   should be used, e.g., "IETF Trust and A. Nonymous" but "IETF Trust,
   J. Blow and T. Rex".

   Any submission which does not include these statements will be
   returned to the submitter.  The IETF Secretariat will NOT add this
   text.

Is "the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents" the
right way to refer to this document?  Should I refer to it that way in
the parenthetical comment too instead of my shorthand of "Trust
Guidance"?

When I was updating section 4 (which talks about the optional
restrictions in 6b.) I ran across a minor hiccough -- 3978 allows the
6.b.ii. statement, "This document may not be modified, and derivative
works of it may not be created, and it may not be published except as
an Internet-Draft.", to be split into two: "This document may not be
modified, and derivative works of it may not be created." and "This
document may only be posted in an Internet-Draft." are in different
sections of 3978.  The section of 3978 that mentions this also
mentions optionally giving extra permissions for MIBs/PIBs published
with this restriction: "other than to extract section XX as-is for
separate use."

-incoming only mentions that there are instructions in the Legend
Instructions, which I assume are the same as the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents, so I can't really tell from
that whether the wg intentionally removed these options; the trust
intentionally removed these options; the trust unintentionally removed
these options; or other.

Thanks,
  Bill
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---

From: "TS Glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 17:06:18 -0700

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Fenner" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 4:17 PM
Subject: Boilerplate text

>   rights (IPR) and copyright statements on the first page:

This isnt something that should be in an Internet Draft... The Draft doesnt 
need to have anything in it about the terms and conditions it was subitted 
to the IETF under if there is only one set of terms for that submission that 
are being accepted now.

The ONLY thing the I-D needs in it is the outgoing license and anything else 
creates a new set of liabilities and responsibilities of the IETF. Ones that 
even IPR's words on paper cannot make go away.

That said the I-D itself should not be a part of the contract for submission 
of the IP that the I-D contains. Only a neophyte contract's person would 
embed the incoming release in the actual work-product itself. That is plain 
silly (actually I wanted to use a word that would give Harald grounds to be 
himself again but I am holding my toung - err fingers here).

Rather the submission process should be a separate and complete document 
which codifes all of the terms and conditions for participating, but hey, 
that wouldnt be elegant eh? - The point is simply that the participation 
process shouldnt be split across multiple documents.

To accomplish that I suggest that RFC2026 (what's left of it), 28, and the 
BCP79 sections pertaining to the "relying party contract" are placed into 
one document and those portions regarding the License to the IETF for the IP 
and BCP78 are placed in a single Submissions Document, and these two new 
document's will supersceed the previous document's.

>   rights (IPR) and copyright statements on the first page:

Again - so what - why say this to the relying party? this is a statement for 
the submitter and no one else. The relying parties already know this because 
its said in BCP79 with the outgoing license statament;

>   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect

Again - links to the actual document's that spell out exactly these sets of 
terms would be better than nothing. Telling somone to review IETF document's 
doesnt necessarily school them for that task. .

>   returned to the submitter.  The IETF Secretariat will NOT add this

The Secretariate's adding that text creates a new document. I have said this 
several times already but the significance of that has been ignored.

> the parenthetical comment too instead of my shorthand of "Trust

I would use a simpler term set. Something like

"IETF Document's are made available under the following terms and 
conditions" a really simple way of saying "uh, yo' this is how you do 
it."...

> with this restriction: "other than to extract section XX as-is for

What exactly does 'this document can only be posted as an internet-draft' 
mean really? shouldn't this actually say something like This document will 
not be advanced as an RFC or Will Not Be Advanced as a Standards Track 
Document...

The problem is the ethical controls on Standards Tracks Document's and their 
requirement's need to be the same for I-D's and those advanced to RFC 
status. All of the IPR issues need to be addressed, and all of the release 
issues need to be met so that the conveyance of the IP to the IETF can be 
perfected as can the relying parties use of that IP through the Outgoing 
License Terms.

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---

From: Stephan Wenger <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 08:14:26 +0100

Hi all.

Personally, I don't care about the presence/absence of "the" in this
context.

I have another issue, and that relates to citing the author's names in the
copyright statement.  At this point, we have a restriction of a maximum of
five co-authors on an I-D/RFC (there may be a few exceptions).  Assume two
documents with four co-authors are to be merged, which frequently happens in
practice.  I believe it would be fair to say that we have now eight
co-authors, jointly owning the work, and each with the right to grant rights
to the whole work (at least according to my understanding of the joint
copyright doctrine in the US).

Today's normal IETF practice would be to assign a single editor (which would
be the only person on the author's list), and mention the (other) previous
co-authors somewhere in the "contributors" list, or in an acknowledgement
paragraph, or somewhere thereabouts.

Now further assume that the editor (sole author listed on page 1) is not
willing to grant rights on his own (beyond the boilerplate rights), whereas
one of the original eight authors is perfectly willing to do so.  Does that
get us in a situation where our procedures limit the rights of that one
original co-author, as his name is not listed in the copyright statement?
If yes, is this going to be a problem in practice?

Personally, I fear the answer is "yes" to both questions.

If it is, the safest solution seems to me to remove the restriction to the
number of co-authors.  Another solution may be that the folks writing the
I-D are advised that they can put more names than just the up to five
authors listed on page 1 of an I-D/RFC into the copyright statement.  Bill's
document may be the right place to do so.

Regards,
Stephan