Subject: Comments to WG meeting

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 19:39:21 +0200

I'm listening to the audio stream now (I had a conflict with the SASL
WG during the meeting), and I have a few comments:

I don't understand the questions in the "Proposed Excerpt Policy"
slide.  If code excerpts are permitted and MUST be modifiable -- which
BCP78 apparently already intend to say if I understand Jorge correctly
-- that is sufficient to be included in GPLed code.  No additional
rights are needed from the author, if I understand the slide
correctly.

I disagree with "Text excerpts MUST NOT be modified".  We have plenty
of running code in this area -- the getaddrinfo man page in Solaris
and excerpts from RFCs in free source code -- which to me suggest that
we should permit modifications of text excerpts.  People have been
putting excerpts from RFCs in modifiable texts for years, and doing so
appear to further the goals of the IETF.  I don't see how the IETF's
goals are furthered by forbidding this commonly used practice.  There
are valid concerns with permitting modifications, but I think a better
balance could be found here.

I agree with David Blacka (?), and would like to thank him for
mentioning this, that we should analyze the consequences for the
examples I gave in Vancouver when there is a new policy.  This also
relates to Klensin's (?) request that we review the policy in a
careful paranoid way instead of assuming that whatever we come up with
is clear and correct.

The license on the code in my rfc3548bis (which was discussed by the
IAB in an variance request) is the _Lesser_ GNU General Public
License.  This is not the GPL, and the licenses differ fundamentally.

An external repository for copyright notifications would not solve the
problem for rfc3548bis.  This is for two reasons: The LGPL require,
like many other licenses, that the copyright notice and the license
itself is preserved together with the code.  You are not permitted to
take a LGPL work and remove the copyright notice or the license from
it.  So the conclusion, if additional copyright notices are not
permitted, is that no code with a license that require the copyright
notice to be present, can be included in an RFC.  That would be a sad
situation, since example code helps a lot when implementing a
specification.

/Simon

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---

From: "Contreras, Jorge" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:33:11 -0400

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Simon Josefsson [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 2:36 PM
> To: Contreras, Jorge
> Cc: Joel M. Halpern; [email-masked]
> Subject: RE: Comments to WG meeting
> 
> 
> >
> >> If I understand Jorge correctly, in his response quoted by Elwyn
> >> recently, RFC 3978 already give everyone this permission too, for
> >> code, but due to its unclear wording, at least I have not 
> been reading
> >> it that way.
> >
> > Here is the right granted for code extracts that's 
> currently in RFC 3978
> > at 3.3.a(E):
> >
> > 		to extract, copy, publish, display, distribute, 
> modify and
> >           incorporate into other works, for any purpose 
> (and not limited
> >           to use within the IETF Standards Process) any 
> executable code
> >           or code fragments that are included in any IETF 
> Document (such
> >           as MIB and PIB modules), subject to the requirements of
> >           Section 5
> 
> Right, although the interesting aspect is whether the rights 
> are granted
> to third parties or only to the IETF and the ISOC.  Your statement, as
> quoted by Brian/Elwyn, implies that you regard the '(and not 
> limited to
> use ...)' parenthesis to mean that third parties are granted 
> those rights.
> 
> The leading text in 3.3.a says that the rights in (A)-(E) are 
> granted to
> the IETF and ISOC, it doesn't say anything about third parties.
> 
> I think we need to establish (1) whether RFC 3978 give third 
> parties the
> above rights, and more importantly, (2) what the IETF's 
> intentions are in
> this area.
> 

Simon -- you are right about the ambiguity.  The license language
that I pasted above just grants rights to IETF Participants.  You have
correctly interpreted RFC 3978.  However, many people point to the
legend "Distribution of this memo is unlimited" that appears in most,
if not all, RFCs as indicating that rights extend more broadly.
This conclusion is drawn not only from this language (which is admittedly
vague), but also from generally accepted past practice.

This being said, I completely agree with you that the intent should
be clarified in the next iteration of RFC 3978.