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Re: IETF and open source license compatibility

Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org> Fri, 13 February 2009 10:48 UTC

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From: Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org>
To: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: IETF and open source license compatibility
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Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 11:48:08 +0100
In-Reply-To: <20090212224724.6be7d6dd@cs.columbia.edu> (Steven M. Bellovin's message of "Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:47:24 -0500")
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"Steven M. Bellovin" <smb@cs.columbia.edu> writes:

> On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:38:44 +0100
> Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org> wrote:
>
>> The discussion started by Stephan suggesting that free software
>> authors publish their work as free standards in the IETF.  My point
>> was that since the IETF disallow publishing standards under a license
>> that is compatible with free software licensing (e.g., allows
>> modification), it is not possible for free software authors to do
>> this.  Thus, to me, this discussion is not related to comments in
>> source code at all.
>
> My understanding of IETF policy is that the IETF will publish I-Ds that
> are in the public domain.  Nothing is freer than that.  You're
> perfectly free to put your text in the public domain before submitting
> it for publication as an RFC.

Sure, but I can also put the text under the Microsoft EULA before
submitting it for publication as an RFC.  The IETF still requires some
assurances from me as contributor, and those assurances go beyond both
what the public domain and the Microsoft EULA implies.

A more interesting question is if you can submit somebody else's public
domain work to the IETF.  I don't know the answer to that.  It seems
clear that I can't take a work licensed under the Microsoft EULA and
submit it to the IETF though.

/Simon

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