IPR J. Halpern, Ed. Internet-Draft Self Intended status: Informational September 2006 Expires: March 5, 2007 Advice to the IAOC on Rights to be Granted in IETF Documents draft-ietf-ipr-outbound-rights-01 Status of this Memo By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on March 5, 2007. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). Abstract The IASA is resposible for managing intellectual property rights on behalf of the IETF. This includes the license to copy, implement and otherwise use IETF contributions, among them Internet-Drafts and RFCs. The IASA accepts direction from the IETF regarding the rights to be granted. This document describes the desires of the IETF regarding outbound rights to be granted in IETF contributions. Halpern Expires March 5, 2007 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Outbound Rights Advice September 2006 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Requirements notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. Purpose in Granting Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3.1. Specific Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. Powers and Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5. Recommended Grants of Right to Copy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5.1. Rights Granted for Reproduction of RFCs . . . . . . . . . . 5 5.2. Rights Granted for Quoting from IETF Contributions . . . . 5 5.3. Rights Granted for Implementing based on IETF Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 5.4. Rights Granted for use of text from IETF Contributions . . 6 5.5. Additional Licenses for IETF Contributions . . . . . . . . 6 6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 6.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 8 Halpern Expires March 5, 2007 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Outbound Rights Advice September 2006 1. Introduction Under the current operational and administrative structures, IETF intellectual property rights are vested in a trust administered by a board of trustees made up of the members of the IASA. This includes the right to make use of IETF contributions, as granted by contributors under the rules laid out in [5]. The IASA is therefore responsible for defining the rights to copy granted by the IETF to people who wish to make use of the material in these documents. The IASA has indicated, as is consistent with the IETF structure, that it will respect the wishes of the IETF in regard to what these rights ought to be. It is therefore the IETFs responsibility to articulate those wishes. This document represents the wishes of the IETF regarding the rights granted to all users in regard to IETF contributions, until it is superceded. 2. Requirements notation The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [1]. This section is retained for now in case it turns out that these terms are needed. If, as seems likely to the editor, these are not needed, the section and the normative reference will be removed. 3. Purpose in Granting Rights In providing a description of the wishes of the IETF with regard to rights granted in RFCs, it is helpful to keep in mind the purpose of granting such rights. The IETF's mission is to write documents that help make the internet work better (see [2] for more details.) These documents, when completed, are published as RFCs. An important subclass of RFCs is standards describing protocols; for these, the primary value to the Internet is the ability of implementors to build solutions (products, software, etc) which interoperate uing these standards. Hence, the IETF has a strong interest in seeing accurate, interoperable implementations of the material we publish. We grant rights to copy to people to make use of the text in the RFCs in order to encourage accurate and interoperable implementations. As early implementations of make use of descriptions in internet-drafts, similar desires apply to Halpern Expires March 5, 2007 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Outbound Rights Advice September 2006 internet-drafts. Similar considerations also apply to non-standard, non-protocol documents such as BCPs and informational documents; in this document, we recommend a common approach to the issue of right-to-use licenses for all IETF documents. 3.1. Specific Issues There are a number of specific concerns that have been raised over time, which this document acknowledges and addresses. One issue that has been noted is that the legal wording for rights is defined in RFCs. As such, if the wording needs modification, without changing the intent of the IETF, there is still a need to revise the RFC. this is at best cumbersome, and often much worse than that. It introduces unnecessary delays in fixing legal matters. And often opens the door to longer discussions that delay resolving the immediate matter. [Editor's note: Further concerns go here.] 4. Powers and Authority As stated in the introduction, the legal authority for determining and granting rights to copy in RFCs rests with the trustees for the IETF trust, which is made up of the members of the IAOC, as described in [3] and [4]. This document provides guidance to that body, based on the rough consensus of the IETF. The IASA, in conjunction with legal counsel has the authority and responsibility to determine the exact copyright text needed in Internet-Drafts, RFCs, and all IETF Contributions to meet these needs. 5. Recommended Grants of Right to Copy In principle, different grants of rights to copy can be granted to individuals based on the purpose or use being made, and the particular material being copied. This section contains subsections for each such different grant that is currently envisioned. Each section is intended to describe a particular problem / situation / usage, to describe how that situation is recognizable, and to provide guidance to the IASA as to what rights the IETF would like to see granted in that circumstances, and what limitations should be put on such granting. As stated above, the formulation of legal language for granting these rights (including the determination of how many sets of legal language are required is largely left to the IASA. Halpern Expires March 5, 2007 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Outbound Rights Advice September 2006 It is particularly noted that there has been a historical issue where it is difficult to fix legal wording and boilerplate if the direction defining that boilerplate is in an RFC, and then it turns out the wording needs modification. As such, this document does not specify such wording. Further, it is strongly recommended that all future RFCs on this topic refrain from defining the precises wording of boilerplate. Similarly, legal issues of how to indicate usage restrictions are left to the IASA and legal consel to determine. In structuring these desires, it is to be kept in mind that the autor has not given up his copyright in granting rights to the IETF, and the IETF is not attempting to transfer or relinquish the rights it has. The purpose is to enable to IASA to grant people the right to make copies of material in RFCs in ways that fit the goals of the IETF. This discussion is also separate from the rights the IETF itself requires in documents to do its job, as those are not "outbound" rights. It is expected that the rights granted to the IETF will be a superset of those copying rights we wish to grant to others. [Editors note: This structure will likely change as working group consens emerges on the rights to be granted.] 5.1. Rights Granted for Reproduction of RFCs It has long been IETF policy to encourage copying of RFCs in full. This permits wide dissemination of the material, without risking loss of context or meaning. The IETF wishes to continue to permit anyone to make full copies and translations of RFCs. 5.2. Rights Granted for Quoting from IETF Contributions There is rough consensus that it is useful to permit the quoting without modification of excerpts from IETF Contributions. Such excerpts may be of any length and in any context. Translation of quotations is also to be permitted. All such quotations SHOULD be attributed properly to the IETF and the IETF document from which they are taken. 5.3. Rights Granted for Implementing based on IETF Contributions IETF contributions often include components intended to be directly processed by a computer. These may be ABNF definitions, XML Schemas or DTDs, MIBs, or even classical programming code. These are include for clarity and precision in specification. It is clearly beneficial, when such items are included in IETF contributions, to permit the inclusion of such code fragments in products which implement the contribution. It has been pointed out that in several Halpern Expires March 5, 2007 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Outbound Rights Advice September 2006 important contexts, use of such code requires the ability to modify the code. One common example of this is simply the need to adapt code for use in specific contexts (languages, compilers, tool systems, etc.) Such use frequently requires some changes to the text of the code from the IETF contribution. Another example is that code included in open source products is frequently licensed to permit any and all of the code to be modified. Since we want this code included in such products, it follows that we need to permit such modification. While there has been discussion of restricting the rights to make such modifications in some way, the rough consensus is that such restrictions are likely a bad idea, and are certainly very complex to define. As such, the rough consensus is that code components of IETF contributions can be extracted, modified, and used by anyone in any way desired. 5.4. Rights Granted for use of text from IETF Contributions There is no consensus at this time to permit the use of text from RFCs in contexts where the right to modify the text is required. The authors of IETF contributions may be able and willing to grant such rights independently of the rights they have granted to the IETF by making the contribution. As such, in crafting legal language and boiler plate, the IASA is also asked to resolve and indicate how code segments of IETF documents, which can be extracted and subsequently modified, are to be indicated by authors and editors as distinct from text segments, which can be extract but not modified. 5.5. Additional Licenses for IETF Contributions There have been contexts where the material in an IETF contribution is also available under other license terms. The IETF wishes to be able to include content which is available under such licenses. It is desirable to indicate in the IETF contribution that other licenses are available. However, the IETF does not wish to have IETF Contributions contain additional copyright notices and licenses, as that introduces a number of additional difficulties. Providing the correct legal approach to such indications is left to the IASA, as all legal language is. 6. References Halpern Expires March 5, 2007 [Page 6] Internet-Draft Outbound Rights Advice September 2006 6.1. Normative References [1] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. 6.2. Informative References [2] Alvestrand, H., "A Mission Statement for the IETF", BCP 95, RFC 3935, October 2004. [3] Austein, R. and B. Wijnen, "Structure of the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA)", BCP 101, RFC 4071, April 2005. [4] Carpenter, B. and L. Lynch, "BCP 101 Update for IPR Trust", BCP 101, RFC 4371, January 2006. [5] Bradner, S., "I-D.ietf-ipr-rules-update-07.txt", 2006. Author's Address Joel M. Halpern (editor) Self P. O. Box 6049 Leesburg, VA 20178 US Email: jmh@joelhalpern.com Halpern Expires March 5, 2007 [Page 7] Internet-Draft Outbound Rights Advice September 2006 Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. This document and the information contained herein are provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM 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. Intellectual Property The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79. Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at http://www.ietf.org/ipr. The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf-ipr@ietf.org. Acknowledgment Funding for the RFC Editor function is provided by the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA). Halpern Expires March 5, 2007 [Page 8]