Subject: RE: Acronims' ambiquity

From: Pete Loshin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 13:59:36 -0400

At 04:50 PM 6/7/00 +0000, Dawson, Peter D wrote:
>->From: Scott Bradner [mailto:[email-masked]]
...
>->the ISOC holds a copyright license on RFCs that permit them to be
>->published and freely copied...

>This is interesting... a couple of weeks ago
>I remember a thread of Pete Loshin's saying 
>something about a 10 series release of various RFC's.
>does this imply (if I understand you correctly)
>that royalty payments (on such publications)
>are made to both Authors/ISOC ??

The short answer is, neither the authors nor ISOC receive royalty payments
(any more than they receive royalties from any of the websites that publish
RFCs).

My understanding of the copyright terms is that they serve a purpose
similar to that of Open Source licenses: the content is "free" and the
copyright language serves to make sure that freedom is retained, no matter
what. Anything less would compromise the openness of the Internet. Allowing
(or even encouraging) publication of RFCs in book form serves (IMO) to make
the RFCs more accessible to more people.

For further clarification of the copyright issues, there are two primary
resources (although I must state up front that I am not a lawyer).

First, the copyright notice included in RFCs. This statement is published
in RFC 2026 (ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2026.txt), section 10.4.(C)*,
and is meant to be included with "all ISOC standards-related
documentation." It asserts that ISOC is the copyright holder to the RFC but
that others may publish the RFC without restriction as long as the
copyright notice is included in all copies.

This copyright statement is reproduced both in the text of the Morgan
Kaufmann collections (as part of all the RFCs, which are in turn reproduced
precisely as they appear online) and on the copyright page of the book.

In addition, the publisher asserts its own copyright on the compilation,
which includes (for example) the front matter (preface and introduction)
and the index.

The second item I reference is a note** presumably written by Jon Postel
(it is signed "Jon"--if I'm mistaken, I'd appreciate being corrected) and
published on the ISI/RFC editor site at
http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc-editor/rfc-copyright-story. Basically, it
states that anyone can publish a book of RFCs and copyright that
collection--and that can't stop anyone _else_ from doing the same.

I hope this helps...

-pl

* from RFC 2026:

---begin copyright statement---

 "Copyright (C) The Internet Society (date). All Rights
 Reserved.

 This document and translations of it may be copied and
 furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or
 otherwise explain it or assist in its implmentation may be
 prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in
 part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above
 copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such
 copies and derivative works.  However, this document itself may
 not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright
 notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet
 organizations, except as needed for the  purpose of developing
 Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights
 defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or
 as required to translate it into languages other than English.

 The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will
 not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or
 assigns.

 This document and the information contained herein is provided
 on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
 ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
 IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE
 OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY
 IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
 PARTICULAR PURPOSE."

---end copyright statement---

** from ISI website:

---begin note---

Hi.

The Request For Comments (RFC) documents are intended to have wide
distribution.

1.  Copying and distributing the whole RFC without any changes:

1a.  The copying and free redistribution are generally encouraged.

1b.  The inclusion of RFCs in other documents and collections that are
distributed for a fee is also encouraged, though in this case it is a
courtesy (i) to ask the RFC author and (ii) provide the RFC author
with a copy of the final document or collection.  Anyone can takes
some RFCs, put them in a book, copyright the book, and sell it.  This
in no way inhibits anyone else from doing the same thing, or inhibits
any other distribution of the RFCs.

2.  Copying and distributing the whole RFC with changes in format,
font, etcetera:

2a.  The same as case 1 with the addition that a note should be made
of the reformatting.

3.  Copying and distributing portions of an RFC:

3a.  As with any material excerpted from another source, proper credit
and citations must be provided.

4.  Translating RFCs into other languages:

4a.  Since wide distribution of RFCs is very desirable, translation
into other languages is also desirable.  The same requirements and
courtesies should be followed in distributing RFCs in translation as
would be followed when distributing RFCs in the original language.

--jon.

---end note---

+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Loshin             http://www.loshin.com               |
| Internet-Standard.com   http://Internet-Standard.com        |
| The RFC Books Series    http://www.loshin.com/bigbooks.html |
| The Linux Project       http://www.thelinuxproject.com      |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 19:48:54 +0100 (BST)

> >->published and freely copied...

You mean ISOC is the copyright holder, yes? licences are generally
obtained by everyone else bar the holder.

> (any more than they receive royalties from any of the websites that publish

I find it odd that, although ISOC is the copyright holder of the RFCs
(as 2026 states) the ISOC website isn't publishing its own RFCs,
providing a list of mirrors, or even listing them as publications - at
least I couldn't find anything under
http://www.isoc.org/isoc/publications/

(So I tend to refer to RFCs as IETF RFCs rather than ISOC RFCs - the
 IETF may not be the copyright holder, but at least its website holds
 archival copies, making mentioning the IETF more of a Useful Context
 Clue.)

L.

this probably has something to do with eating your own dogfood.

<[email-masked]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>

---

From: Pete Loshin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 15:39:55 -0400

At 07:48 PM 6/7/00 +0100, Lloyd Wood wrote:
...
>http://www.isoc.org/isoc/publications/

The IETF, IESG and IAB are all part of ISOC (those organizations variously
described as being "chartered by ISOC" or ISOC as being "the organizational
home" for IETF et al). There is a link to the IETF website on the ISOC home
page, which links in turn to the RFC editor website, and there you can find
the archive (or go directly to www.rfc-editor.org).

> archival copies, making mentioning the IETF more of a Useful Context

It's certainly proper to refer to "IETF RFCs" (or at least I hope it is
since that's how I've been referring to them for years). Copyright
ownership does not necessarily reflect authorship: computer book publishers
routinely register copyright in their own, not the author's, name.

-pl