Subject: Draft charter, IPR WG

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 12:48:45 +0100

One of the items on our list of work items is drafting a new charter.

An initial attempt is attached.
Comments?

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

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 14:02:08 +0100

> An initial attempt is attached.

This seems fairly good to me, thanks, except the second sentence in
this paragraph:

>    This group has attempted to clarify and update that IPR policy,
>    resulting in RFC 3978, RFC 3979 and RFC 3905. The WG has also
>    discussed the possibility of changing the IETF's IPR policy, but
>    did not detect a consensus for doing so.

This seem to be counter to:

>    At the time of this recharter (January 2006), there are two
>    remaining items of work for the WG:
>
>    - An issue with the production of derivative works has led to the
>      realization that RFC 2026 and RFC 3978 do not specify exacty the
>      same policy on this matter, and that neither policy, when read
>      literally, may be optimal for the IETF's purpose

I believe the WG has consensus that the RFC 3978 policy is wrong and
should be changed.  RFC 3978 doesn't permit redistribution by third
parties.

I also believe the WG has consensus on granting the IETF some new
inbound rights (such as granting other organizations the right to IETF
documents, possibly on a case-by-case basis).  The show of hands in
Vancouver supported this consensus.  These rights were not in RFC
2026, and there is some opposition to this change (notably John
Klensin, if I understood him correctly).

Since we have also not agreed on the interpretation of RFC 2026 -- I
claim that it give third parties a "field of use" right to use and
distribute modified derivative works -- and that other problems with
RFC 2026 has been discovered (as you note in the last paragraph
above), I believe it is reasonable to say that there is consensus to
modify the IETF IPR policy.

I also believe this WG will have more useful participation if the
charter was specific that the IETF IPR policy is being modified, even
if it is only slightly.

In other words, if you claim that you are not modifying the IPR
policy, nobody will care about reviewing the end result because it is
supposed to change nothing.  I think I have showed that this is
clearly not the case here.

>    - The creation of the IETF Trust for managing the IETF IPR has led
>      to the question of the IETF community giving advice on how this
>      IPR is to be handled, in particular whether the previous
>      discussions of the IPR WG has led to experience that should be
>      codified.

Ok.

>    The WG will produce 3 documents:
>
>    - An update to RFC 3978 (BCP) that attempts to specify an useful
>      set of rights granted to the IETF by authors

Scott's current draft deal with both inbound and outbound rights.  I
believe it would be useful to remove all modifications to the outbound
rights from the document.  I believe the outbound rights should be
dealt with in a separate document.  Only when that document has been
finished should the RFC boiler plate about redistribution rights be
updated.

>    - A document (info) giving advice to the IETF Trust on what rights in
> IETF
>      contributions it should attempt to grant to the public

Good.

>    - A document (info) giving other advice to the IETF Trust on IPR
> handling,
>      based on the IPR WG's experience of discussions in the area
>
>    The last document may include advice to the IETF Trust on
>    mechanisms for consulting with the community on IPR issues once the
>    IPR WG has closed, if consensus on such advice can be found.

I'm not at all sure what would go into such a document, so...

>    The IPR WG may decide to drop the last document from its charter if
>    it decides that it has nothing to say.

...that seem very appropriate.

> Goals and Milestones:
>
>    Done	     1st draft of RFC 3978 update
>    Jan 2006  1st draft of granted rights advice doc 
>    Feb 2006  1st draft of IPR advice doc
>    Mar 2006  RFC 3978 update to IESG for approval
>    Apr 2006  Granted rights advice to IESG for approval
>    Aug 2006  IPR advice to IESG for approval
>    Oct 2006  Once documents are all published, close WG

This seem unreasonable aggressive to me, but if you believe this
schedule could be implemented, that would be impressive.

Thanks,
Simon

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 14:20:52 +0100

--On tirsdag, januar 10, 2006 14:02:08 +0100 Simon Josefsson 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> should be changed.

Right - the sentence would probably be more accurate if it said "the IETF's 
IPR policy with regard to patents". It's better to claim too little than 
too much.

Whether the desired result of the current item is a return to the "ancient 
traditions" (pre 2026) or not is a rathole we shouldn't get into!

                    Harald

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 14:38:53 +0100

Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]> writes:

> Right - the sentence would probably be more accurate if it said "the
> IETF's IPR policy with regard to patents". It's better to claim too
> little than too much.

Yes.  Making it clear that we won't venture into the patent area seem
like a very good idea.  The IPR term is unfortunate, patents and
copyrights are different animals.

> Whether the desired result of the current item is a return to the
> "ancient traditions" (pre 2026) or not is a rathole we shouldn't get
> into!

I'm not familiar with the pre-2026 traditions.  I'm having a hard time
figuring out what 2026 was intended to say, but whatever it was, it
doesn't seem to be close to what we are discussing now.  My
interpretation of the 2026 license is that it is a "field of use"
license, one that David wants.  I think the reason this question
re-surface is that the charter and our milestones make references to
it, i.e. "not modifying the status quo".  If the status quo is
unclear, the outcome will be unclear.  That would be unfortunate.

It seem better to say that we are re-aligning the outbound copying
conditions to match how we wish the IETF documents are used in the
future.  Without relating that to past traditions and mistakes.

Thanks,
Simon

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 15:21:06 +0100

> An initial attempt is attached.

Thanks.  It apparently covers the points I'm interested in.
How about listing the various existing input documents ?

draft-bradner-rfc-extracts, draft-bradner-author-contributors,
Simon's draft, what else ?  [BTW, that's not yet complete in
procdoc-roadmap-03, I also miss a draft that I vaguely recall
as "BoF HowTo"]

John said we should look at the CC model, your text apparently
covers that.  He also said that the expiration of drafts can
be a feature.  That's a potential obstacle for the prototype
implementation of http://tools.ietf.org/id - is that an issue
for anything this WG will do ?
                               Bye, Frank

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 09:28:04 +0100

Is there anything in draft-ietf-ipr-trademarks-00.txt we should
be considering?

(It's expired, but the curious can find it at
http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-ipr-trademarks-00.txt)

     Brian

---

From: "Soininen Jonne (Nokia-NET/Espoo)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 17:32:26 +0200

Hi,

looks reasonably good. I just wondered that we have to update at least
RFC3978 to reflect the IETF Trust. Basically, the copyright for the RFCs
and drafts should at some point start to go to the Trust instead of
ISOC. 

Is this already reflected in the charter, or should we add a specific
item on it.

Cheers,

Jonne.

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 17:04:26 +0100

--On onsdag, januar 11, 2006 17:32:26 +0200 "Soininen Jonne 

> Is this already reflected in the charter, or should we add a specific

Sigh.... I'd like to not touch RFC 3978 if we can avoid it.

If we touch it at all, I'd like to gut it thoroughly - move all the literal 
boilerplate and exact procedures into "IETF operational documents" that can 
be changed by the IESG/IAOC/IAD as appropriate, and state the purpose of 
the thing instead. We've proved positively that we don't know how we'll 
need to change them.

But that's a MAJOR operation.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 17:33:59 +0100

Actually you could do it with a separate RFC that updates BCP 78,
which has some advantages I think, including speed.

BCP 9 makes it clear that a BCP can consist of multiple RFCs:
    A specification, or group of specifications, that has, or have been
    approved as a BCP is assigned a number in the BCP series while
    retaining its RFC number(s).

The goal of externalizing the legal texts seems like a good
one, from a practical point of view. But it may take a little
longer.

    Brian

Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
> If we touch it at all, I'd like to gut it thoroughly - move all the 
> literal boilerplate and exact procedures into "IETF operational 
> documents" that can be changed by the IESG/IAOC/IAD as appropriate, and 
> state the purpose of the thing instead. We've proved positively that we 
> don't know how we'll need to change them.
>

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 17:40:03 +0100

> Sigh.... I'd like to not touch RFC 3978 if we can avoid it.

Considering that strong language is used even in the title:

5.4.  Copyright Notice (required for all IETF Documents)
...
      "Copyright (C) The Internet Society (year).

I think it would be highly confusing to refer to RFC 3978(bis) without
changing that aspect.

> documents" that can be changed by the IESG/IAOC/IAD as appropriate,
> and state the purpose of the thing instead. We've proved positively
> that we don't know how we'll need to change them.

FWIW, that sounds like a good idea.

Thanks,
Simon

---

From: "Soininen Jonne (Nokia-NET/Espoo)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 18:41:46 +0200

Hi,

yes, good point. I actually had in mind a separate document - not the
reissuing of BCP 78. However, I have not checked how much there would be
to update, yet. I'll look into that.

Cheers,

Jonne.