Re: IETF and open source license compatibility

[Wes Hardaker <[e-mail]>]

>>>>> On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:39:53 +0200, Jari Arkko <[e-mail]> said:

JA> I agree that there are problematic case, but I believe I hope everyone
JA> realizes this is only the case if the RFC in question has
JA> code. Otherwise it really does not matter. Only some RFCs have code.

Actually, many RFCs have code.  XML, XML schemas, MIBs, etc are all
pseudo-code files that need to be redistributed and often contain syntax
errors (and thus need to be modified before they're usable; some
relevant copyrights (like IANA's MIB copyright [1]) don't let you modify
the potentially broken files and redistribute them.  Fortunately,
getting IANA to fix problems and publish a fixed copy of the MIB
probably isn't a problem.



Now, lets get back to whether code can be extracted.  Interestingly RFC5378
(which affects only all documents after it) says that:

              The IETF Trust may establish different policies for
   granting sublicenses with respect to different types of Contributions
   and content within Contributions (such as executable code versus
   descriptive text or references to third-party materials).  The IETF
   Trust's policies concerning the granting of sublicenses to make
   derivative works will be guided by RFC [RFC5377].


So, I couldn't find a statement that says automatic sublicenses will be
given out for code related items.  It only says that the policies for
creating those sublicenses ***will*** be guided by 5377 (which says
about the right thing: you can modify code extracts).  IE, is it
actually possible to use code from RFCs beyond 5378?  I think each
company/organization/author would need to personally ask the IETF trust
for a sublicense?


Footnotes: 
[1]  http://www.ietf.org/copyrights/ianamib.html

-- 
Wes Hardaker
Sparta, Inc.