Re: legal consultation (was List moderator action)

[Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]>]

With some help from John Levine, I can tell you that exactly 4 IETF stream RFCs since RFC 5378 carry the "no derivative works" boilerplate: RFCs 5728, 6449, 6667 and 7016.

RFC 8789 makes it highly unlikely there will ever be any more. (Personal opinion: all of those four would have been perfectly appropriate for the Independent stream.)

There are 17 "no derivative works" RFCs in the Independent and IRTF streams.

Regards/Ngā mihi
    Brian Carpenter

On 07-May-26 15:47, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> Simon,
> 
>> Thus, let me propose something stronger: forbid the no-derivative rights
>> clause completely, for all Contributions.
> 
> Thr original intention was explicitly to allow the RFC series to
> re-publish 3rd party specifications (whether proprietary, or controlled
> by another SDO).
> 
> That might still be useful, but IMHO could, and probably should, be
> done in the Independent Submission stream of RFCs. The Independent
> stream can already permit "no derivative rights" under RFC 5744.
> 
> Therefore, IMHO it would be perfectly reasonable to disallow "no
> derivative rights" for all IETF stream contributions. I really
> don't think it will have a chilling effect on new work. (If someone
> is planning a patent, they will not submit a draft anyway.)
> 
> Incidentally, I cannot be certain of this without a lot of work, but
> I strongly suspect that the number of IETF stream documents with a
> "no derivative works" clause published since RFC 5378 is approximately
> zero. (There are many with the "pre5378Trust200902" boilerplate, but there
> is nothing to be done about that and it will remain necessary for some
> "bis" documents.) So I believe that Simon's proposal would have no effect
> whatever on the IETF's output, and would ease our discussions.
> 
> Regards/Ngā mihi
>      Brian Carpenter
> 
> On 07-May-26 08:40, Simon Josefsson wrote:
>> Rob Sayre <[e-mail]> writes:
>>
>>> Hi, I wrote it up:
>>>
>>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-sayre-gendispatch-derivative/
>>
>> Thanks for writing that.
>>
>> I don't think it make sense to permit I-D's to prohibit derivative works
>> and at the same time forbid presentation or e-mail posts about the I-D
>> to use the same clause.  It seems hard to discuss or present a
>> no-derivative I-D in a presentation that can be derived by others and
>> re-used in other's Contributions.  The policy should be consistent
>> regardless of the form of contribution, which I believe it currently is.
>>
>> Thus, let me propose something stronger: forbid the no-derivative rights
>> clause completely, for all Contributions.
>>
>> I wonder what people think about that?
>>
>> Has it been a net-win for the IETF to permit Contributions under the
>> no-derivative rights clause?  The approach was designed in a different
>> era, where (IIRC) external SDOs/people could gauge IETF-interest for
>> some piece of work without giving up rights.
>>
>> I still think no-derivative rights contributions may be useful, so I'm
>> not sure it is possible to reach consensus to kill the concept.  Scott
>> Bradner has explained earlier some of the original rationale, and I
>> think that had a point.
>>
>> /Simon
>>
>>> I'm happy for anyone to take that off my hands and create a derivative work.
>>>
>>> In off-list discussion, it was clarified that Section 3 and Section 4 are
>>> non-normative.
>>>
>>> thanks,
>>> Rob