[Ietf-and-github] Mail regarding draft-ietf-git-github-wg-configuration, section 3.1 (Contributions)

[Stephan Wenger <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

One concern I have when I see people, in an IETF context, work on docs in toolchains other than IETF mailing lists and posting of I-Ds on the IETF infrastructure is that I think we should ensure that BCP79 sticks.  BCP79 is the IETF’s patent policy.  A scenario to avoid is that people insert patented technologies without being bound by the patent policy.  To avoid that, there ought to be a mechanism that a) unambiguously makes it clear that any written contribution using GitHib tools constitute Contributions in the BCP79 sense, and b) ensures that a user that makes a written contribution using GitHub tools would have seen the Note Well at least once.

I believe that most GitHub-using working groups in the IETF have assured that by including something like a click-through of the Note Well when accessing the GitHub repository (writing to it in whatever form).  That, I think is sufficient, but perhaps should be documented in this draft.  I  don’t know enough about the mechanics to propose text myself.   Lots of that may already be present in Martin’s template, but that template is hard to read/understand for someone like me, who’s not writing software or webpages.

One thing I don’t understand is why the Trust outbound license needs to be present in the repository, as suggested in section 3.1.  Especially for a WG that uses GitHub only for maintaining documents and not software.  Can someone explain or point me to an explanation?

Thanks,
Stephan