Re: [Trustees] ANNOUNCEMENT: The IETF Trustees invite your reviewand comments on a proposed Work-Around to the Pre-5378 Problem

On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 02:37:50PM +0100, Simon Josefsson wrote:
> > We do have precedent for include code that has explicit open source
> > licensing rights.  For example, the MD5 implementation in RFC 1321 has
> > an explicit BSD-style license.
> 
> Sure, but under the post-RFC 2026 rules that would not be allowed since
> the rules do not permit additional copyright notices to be present in
> documents.  There has been exceptions and mistakes, so there are
> post-RFC 2026 documents with other licensing information in them, but
> the IESG/IAB has also rejected including free software code in RFCs.
> Allowing BSD-like code to be included in RFCs would be great step
> forward.  It is not allowed under the RFC 5378 license either, at least
> not generally when the code was not written by the document author.

This should clearly be fixed in RFC 5378-bis, in my opinion.  If the
goal is to allow code to be allowed in Open Source Software, then
requiring a maximally compatible OSS license for code makes sense.
But requiring for random protocol text, especially if this is going to
make reuse of older RFC's text, seems to not be a great cost/benefit
tradeoff.

> A more realistic approach may be to think about how text in RFCs are
> used.  Text often end up in free software projects as comments.  This is
> useful and helps get the RFC implemented correctly in a more
> maintainable fashion.  The goals of the IETF is furthered by this, I
> argue, so it is disappointing RFC 5378 does not solve the problem.

At least in the linux kernel, quoting a 2-3 sentences of an RFC in
comments is common practice, even before RFC 5378.  It is also been
done with great frequency in documentation, magazine articles and
journals, and so on.  Fair use takes care of this problem, and there I
don't think even the most insanely paranoid and unreasonable corporate
lawyer would think that 2-3 sentences quoted in manuals, code, etc.,
would be unreasonable.  

Certainly this is something where we have over two decades historical
practice, and if anyone thinks an IETF contributor or company would be
suicidially idiotic enough from a Public Relations point of view to
try to sue someone for using 2-3 sentences when this would be pretty
clearly fair use, and the reputations of said IETF contributor or
company would be pilloried in the press, I would gently suggest that
whoever is worried about is greatly disconneted from reality, if they
were to think about the risks involved.

					- Ted
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