Re: RFC 5378 "contributions"

> On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 03:20:20PM +0100, Tom.Petch wrote:
>> 
>> Underlying this, I believe that if only the IPR WG had not had to
>> spend so much time discussing and re-discussing and re-re-discussing
>> ... this issue, then may be, just may be, we would have had more
>> time to focus on the transition arrangements that we identified the
>> need for in RFC5377 s.3.  In which case, this thread and all the
>> other related ones would never have occurred.
>
> So I wasn't on the IPR working group, but it seems to me that there
> are two separable issues.  There is the question of *which* license to
> use for contributions (which might or might not vary based on type of
> contribution, i.e., text vs. code), and then there is the question of
> whether we are sticking the entire legal liability and respponsibility
> onto the I-D editors/authors to guarantee/warant that the entire
> document can be released under the the new licensing requirements, and
> that relates quite strongly to the transition issue.
>
> Was that second issue discussed by the IPR wg?

The discussions weren't framed under topics like that, but I don't
recall extensive discussions on the liability aspect.

However, the theme were present in several discussions about simplifying
the procedures.  One link (but probably not the best one) would be:

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.ipr/3738

Implicit in that argument is that contributors release their own
contribution under a license, and do not vouch for anyone else's
contribution, and that others can re-use the material under that
license.  This is the normal procedure in the free software community.

What we are seeing now is, I believe, one instance of what John referred
to in that thread as (paraphrasing liberally) perpetually fixing yet
another corner case.  Unfortunately but not surprisingly, people appears
to react to the current problem by searching for the simplest quick-fix.

/Simon
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