Re: Protecting Copyright.

[Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]>]

Just to elaborate on Pete's response. The reason the rules are set up this
way is to account for two problems that have been encountered in the past.

One problem that comes up repeatedly is that someone writes a draft and
stops participating in IETF process. In some cases the original author may
be unreachable, there may be six authors, some may even have died. It is
often completely impractical to revise a draft in those circumstances. So a
draft might have to be completely rewritten to make a minor change.

The other issue is that someone writes a proposal, someone else copies the
entire proposal with changes the original authors disagree with and submit
that with their own names on it. That is not common but has happened to me
once, (though in that particular case my name had already dropped off the
draft in question for reasons of politics of getting it adopted.)

So the rules give two options for good reason. But for most cases, what we
really need is possibly a third option which is closer to a 'moral right'
sort of approach. In certain cases I do reserve copyright but what I am
really after is a weaker condition which is attribution. I would be quite
happy with someone taking one of my drafts and using it as the basis for a
new draft provided that there is a prominent notice on the front page (or
HTML equivalent) stating that this is a continuation of my draft and
acknowledging that while I do not endorse this particular variation, it is
built on my work.

That might be something worth considering for the future as part of RFC
evolution.




On Tue, Apr 28, 2020 at 2:10 PM Pete Resnick <[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 28 Apr 2020, at 12:42, Khaled Omar wrote:
>
> > Is this means that anyone can use the contents of the IDs stored at
> > the ietf repository !!!!
>
> Anyone who is contributing their work to the standards process can
> include derivative works of other items contributed to the standards
> process (caveat the information below).
>
> > So what is the copyright text included at the beginning and the end of
> > each ID !!!!
>
> It specifically allows for derivative works. See BCP 78 (RFC 5378)
> section 5.3.c <https://tools.ietf.org/html/bcp78#section-5.3>. By
> including that copyright statement (and not including any other
> limitations), the author has granted the right to make those derivative
> works.
>
> > Does this includes applying what is included inside the ID without
> > contacting the draft authors ?!
>
> Yes. An author is allowed to limit the right to make derivative works
> (see section 6 <https://tools.ietf.org/html/bcp78#section-6>, but I do
> not see this limitation in draft-omar-nep, which means you have granted
> the right to make derivative works to the IETF Trust, and the IETF Trust
> grants the right to include derivative works in new contributions to the
> standards process to other authors. There is no requirement for
> contacting the original draft author.
>
> pr
> --
> Pete Resnick https://www.episteme.net/
> All connections to the world are tenuous at best
>
>