Subject: #1273 How do we usefully define "excerpt"?

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 10:53:52 +0200

Based on Simon's and John's comments, I've attempted to create a ticket 
that allows us to focus on the issue of "what is an excerpt" while 
accepting the rough consensus (John is "rough" at the moment) that 
excerpts should be permitted.

Comments on these issues are in-scope on this thread....

Text of ticket:

Issue #1166 concerns whether we want to permit excerpts (verbatim) from 
IETF documents.

Two seemingly-related concerns have been raised in conjunction with this:

- Simon Josefsson asks what modifications are permitted to an excerpts 
that would allow it to be still considered "verbatim". Examples of "it 
seems reasonable to allow" are:

* remove page breaks

* re-flow the text to fit a particular column width

* add text to fit a particular circumstance.  For example, it is often
  useful to quote an RFC in a C++ source comment, which for longer
  quotes typically require that you prefix each line with '//'.

There are other examples that are less clear, including:

* Incorporating errata
* Fix spelling typos
* Improve ASCII art by replacing it with a real drawing

John Klensin has raised another concern:

"I'm prepared to lose this one, although, if I do, I'm going to
press strongly for copyright transfers to the IETF so the policy
can be administered ("why that is relevant" is probably a
different thread, but hinges on when an excerpt isn't "just" an
excerpt)."

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From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 11:12:43 +0200

Harald Alvestrand wrote:

> Based on Simon's and John's comments, I've attempted to create a 
> ticket that allows us to focus on the issue of "what is an excerpt" 
> while accepting the rough consensus (John is "rough" at the moment) 
> that excerpts should be permitted. 

Note made after sending the previous:

Based on my experience with how the meaning of words changes when 
translated, I'd like to debate whether we consider translated excerpts 
to be "verbatim" too - or whether we want to declare explicit consensus 
that we want to permit translated excerpts as a separate resolution.

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 13:40:33 +0200

Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]> writes:

> to be "verbatim" too - or whether we want to declare explicit
> consensus that we want to permit translated excerpts as a separate
> resolution.

Ouch, this seems potentially complex.

Are there, or will there likely be in the near future, one "official"
translation of RFCs for a particular language?

If not, there are two positions I can see:

1) Have the IETF license (with whatever wording it will have on
   verbatim quotes) apply to all translation made by anyone.

2) Let each translator adopt his own license for his work, and make it
   clear in the IETF license that contributors accept that
   translations of their contribution can be licensed under whatever
   license the translator chooses.

The conservative choice seem to be 1).  Whether that is intended by
RFC 3978 isn't clear right now, at least to me.  RFC 3978 doesn't seem
to say anything about the license on translations.  I can't think of
other useful positions, can anyone else?

However, this may create confusion, if two translations to a language
exists, that is subtle different, and is cited somewhere.  Then the
claim "RFC x says:" seem incorrect.

Perhaps we shouldn't allow verbatim quotes of translated RFCs to say
"RFC x says:" at all, but rather force it to be "Z's translation of
RFC x says:".  However, I dislike a license that is complex enough to
have to go into that kind of subtle details.

As you might guess, I don't have a clear opinion on this.

I note that if we have a permissive license on entire documents, none
of this appear to be a problem.  Anyone can quote the original and
translated RFC, however they want, as long as they don't claim
something that is false (e.g., "RFC x says that you MUST do this" when
it really doesn't say that; a permissive IETF license can include
restrictions like that).

/Simon

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From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 14:33:05 +0200

> other useful positions, can anyone else?
3) Let each translator adopt his own license, subject to the restriction 
that the rights granted to the users of the translation are no more 
extensive than the rights granted under the license for the original 
RFC. That seems consistent with the RFC 3978 language on derived works 
inside the IETF process (3.3 a. (C)):

             ....... The license to such
          derivative works not granting the ISOC and the IETF any more
          rights than the license to the original Contribution,

> it really doesn't say that; a permissive IETF license can include
I don't parse how that solves the problem.... I guess it depends on a 
particular interpretation of "permissive".....

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 14:37:38 +0200

...
>  quotes typically require that you prefix each line with '//'.

Also: use multiple fonts for clarity

> There are other examples that are less clear, including:

Opinion: OK if they are already posted by the RFC Editor.
If discovered by the publisher, they should not be
incorporated; they should be described separately.

> * Fix spelling typos

Opinion: OK, as is translation from English

> * Improve ASCII art by replacing it with a real drawing

Opinion: dangerous. Should be labelled as "redrawn by [the publisher]"

> different thread, but hinges on when an excerpt isn't "just" an

I'm not sure. If we get the right to allow derivative works by 3rd parties,
why would we need this?

    Brian

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From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 16:04:31 +0200

> incorporated; they should be described separately.

Another problem with errata's, even those published by the RFC Editor,
is that they may change over time.

Still, in some situations (when space is short, or brevity is
preferred) it would be useful to permit this modification.

> I'm not sure. If we get the right to allow derivative works by 3rd parties,

Good question, I don't see why.

In general, I think that Copyright transfers may be a good idea
anyway.  It would, e.g., enable the IETF to defend copyright
infringement on RFCs.  OTOH, the IETF might prefer to avoid wasting
time in court though.

/Simon

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From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 16:07:43 +0200

> infringement on RFCs.  OTOH, the IETF might prefer to avoid wasting
As Todd Glassey is fond of pointing out, copyright transfers are usually 
done via mechanisms that have relatively high transaction costs - both 
in terms of number of steps required and in the number of signoffs one 
usually has to get before jumping through those hoops.

How much more expensive can we usefully make the process?

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 16:08:57 +0200

Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]> writes:

> 3) Let each translator adopt his own license, subject to the
> restriction that the rights granted to the users of the translation
> are no more extensive than the rights granted under the license for
> the original RFC. That seems consistent with the RFC 3978 language on
> derived works inside the IETF process (3.3 a. (C)):
>

Seems good to me.

> particular interpretation of "permissive".....

I meant a license that is permissive enough to be compatible with
popular free licenses out there, such as the revised BSD license and
the GPL.

/Simon

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 16:49:06 +0200

The usual thing in multilingual documents is for
them to say "In case of doubt, the original version
in <language> is definitive."

(Living in Switzerland, with four national languages
and widespread use of English, this is a well known
issue to me.)

     Brian

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From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 16:52:22 +0200

Requiring all translations to carry a note similar to that seem like a
good idea, then.  Perhaps even the URL to the real version.

/Simon

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From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 11:12:19 -0700

Thanks Simon - there are other issues about Copyrights as well - did you
know for instance that in order to file a court case against a CI matter
(infringement) that the Copyrights would have to be formally registered with
the Library of Congress per my understanding. Also failing to do that - i.e.
failing to fight an infringement is essentially tantamount to abandoning the
IP which apparently the IETF  does not have the legal rights to do since
this would breach the agreement it has with the submitters of the IP's
themselves.

All of this is per what the IETF's role is and how it wants to relicense or
protect the ITEF's IP's if they in fact do exist.

Todd

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From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 16:12:24 -0400

--On Thursday, 27 April, 2006 16:07 +0200 Harald Alvestrand
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> As Todd Glassey is fond of pointing out, copyright transfers
> are usually done via mechanisms that have relatively high
> transaction costs - both in terms of number of steps required
> and in the number of signoffs one usually has to get before
> jumping through those hoops.
> 

As compared to the cost of trying to precisely define exactly
what types of excerpts are permitted, of exactly what sorts of
modifications are and are not permitted in them, and how they
are identified.... and going through this process again in a
year when we discover that we have gotten it wrong, I suggest
that the pain of copyright transfers --done on an "any rights I
have, I transfer and I believe there are no rights in this
[compiled] work I haven't accounted for"  basis-- is _much_
lower.  

Minimization of overall costs --including the costs to the
community of regularly repeating the types of attempted
hair-splitting we have seen here and the costs of worrying about
what to do about RFCs published before a long list of flag days
-- is exactly why I'm suggesting that, if we need these other
rights including the right to permit semi-arbitrary third-party
uses, we should pack it in and insist on copyright transfers as
the low-cost option.

    john

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From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 16:09:02 -0700

John, since I am limited to one original post and one response to each
posting of a response, then in response to your posting -  this is actually
covered already... the issue is of what use the IETF is trying to make of
these documents and their content. If:

    0)    The rules are as the Management of this WG claims they are and
that the implementation of the protocol models do not need specific
Derivative Use Licenses in them, then...

---

    1)    IF: The IETF wants to republish IP for use inside its standards
process... then I think that the IETF's reprinting internally to its
standards process would most assuredly be covered by the Research Exemption
under the Copyright's Fair Use Section (see sections 107-118)

    2)    IF: The IETF wants to allow others to republish the IETF Works in
furtherance of the IETF's Standards Processes - that also would be OK under
the banner of the Research Publication - except...

        a)     That this implies that there is some method of
reincorporating that work during the Standards Process into the Standard
itself. Which seems to be a totally missing part of the IETF process. That
being the process of how external commentary or submissions are taken into
an ongoing standards process.

        b)    There is also the issue of who owns the externally supplied
research - because while the copyright provisions allow publication under
the Research Exemptions they dont automatically convey ownership of the
underlaying IP's to the IETF directly either ... which means that the person
or entity that actually owns the IP probably owns this externally developed
IP as well - so again we have the "why in anyone's right mind would they do
this???" to ask...

----

These are two key problems with the issues of external inclusions into the
IETF's processes because of the ownership of the IP's produced in the
external processes. So unfortunately I believe that the answer is that the
IETF probably cannot allow for external submissions to the IETF's Standards
Process, and as such has no need of releases or licenses for this.

Todd Glassey

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John C Klensin" <[email-masked]>
To: "Harald Alvestrand" <[email-masked]>; "Simon Josefsson"
<[email-masked]>
Cc: "Brian E Carpenter" <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006 1:12 PM
Subject: Re: #1273 How do we usefully define "excerpt"?

let me not answer these other questions as that may start Harald off on
trying to have me banned again...

> [compiled] work I haven't accounted for"  basis-- is _much_

Excerpts are excerpts - this is not something that the IETF needs to be
concerned with beyond the "use for republishing for the creation of
Standards". If the IETF needs something beyond this - then please tell me
what it is and why? also how the IETF's moneyless pockets are going to pay
Jorge's hourly to get him into a litigation to protect those IP's....

> uses, we should pack it in and insist on copyright transfers as

Which again obligates the IETF to take certain stances which it has no
financial resources to fund those with.

Again - how is the IETF going to fund an IP infringement effort? How is the
IETF going to decide which IP Infringements to fight? and what is it that
fighting them will  give to the IETF? Sole - Exclusive Ownership? - remember
that this takes a signature of some type and email isnt enough at this time
to facilitate this. Especially with all the spoofing possible with email...

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From: "Tom Petch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 19:33:33 +0200

---- Original Message -----
From: "Brian E Carpenter" <[email-masked]>
To: "Harald Alvestrand" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006 2:37 PM
Subject: Re: #1273 How do we usefully define "excerpt"?

> Opinion: OK, as is translation from English
Disagree, your fixing a typo is my change of meaning; even a change of
punctuation can change the meaning.  If Simon wants to do this, he should do it
outside the quoted excerpt making clear he is the author of the change and
responsible for any resulting change..

Tom Petch