Re: RFC 5378 "contributions"

At 16:23 15-01-2009, Theodore Tso wrote:
>That I think is the key; each person can only warrant what they
>themselves have authored.  Something that might be worth looking at is
>the Developer's Certification of Origin, which is how Linux Kernel
>developers deal with contributions for the Linux Kernel.  Anything

First, we get authors to certify their works.  Then we get 
contributors (see Note Well) to certify their contributions.  If we 
take that one step further, the IETF will be able to establish formal 
membership.

>which gets incoproated into the kernel must have a Signed-off-by, like
>this:

The IETF does not use version control to keep track of changes to a 
document.  Document changes cannot be compared to code contributions 
as the process is different.  Historically, the process of getting 
from idea to RFC has been informal.  "Official" communication is 
usually done through email.  Those messages aren't even signed with 
S/MIME or PGP.

There was a time when it was easy to make a contribution to the IETF 
and when we could tap into the large pool of published knowledge and 
build upon it.  In my opinion, copyright was relatively 
straight-forward if one was operating within the Standards 
Process.  Now, I need to hire a lawyer before asserting anything.

Regards,
-sm

P.S. I share the blame because of the comments I posted to the IPR WG.  

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