Re: IETF and open source license compatibility

[Simon Josefsson <[e-mail]>]

Harald Alvestrand <[e-mail]> writes:

> Tony Finch wrote:
>> On Thu, 12 Feb 2009, Jari Arkko wrote:
>>   
>>> I agree that there are problematic case, but I believe I hope everyone
>>> realizes this is only the case if the RFC in question has code.
>>> Otherwise it really does not matter. Only some RFCs have code.
>>>     
>>
>> Except that it prevents using the text of an RFC as comments in an
>> implementation.
>>   
> actually that's intended to be permitted by RFC 5377 section 4.2:
>
> 4.2.  Rights Granted for Quoting from IETF Contributions
>
>   There is rough consensus that it is useful to permit 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 Contribution from which they are
>   taken.
>
> You're not permitted to modify the text. You are permitted to use it.

Exactly, and disallowing modifications prevents using the text of an RFC
as a comment in implementations licensed under free software licenses.

For short excerpts, one can use the text anyway and claim "fair use",
but larger excerpts can be useful to quote in comments or documentation
and then there is a problem.

/Simon