Re: IETF and open source license compatibility

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

On 2009-02-15 03:44, Theodore Tso wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 09:12:16AM +1300, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>> Or afterwards, since the license a contributor grants to the
>> IETF Trust is non-exclusive. So contributing these words to the IETF
>> does not affect in any way my ability to do as I wish with them
>> after hitting the Send button.
> 
> This is true, although it may be non-obvious to the reader of an RFC
> that this is the case.  Is it really the case that current IETF
> polices and procedures do not allow the addition of a copyright
> statement saying that the code in question is also licensed under some
> other (preferably BSD-style) license?  If so, perhaps the reason for
> that restriction should be reconsidered?

I'll leave the legal answer to a legal person, but in my mind the current
rule doesn't forbid a factual statement in the document that a license
such as you suggest below has been issued for (part of) the text.

> 
> Or perhaps another way of solving this problem would be to allow the
> author of the code in question to file an IPR disclosure stating that
> "I, John Q. Smith, am the author of the code found in RFC XXX, and I
> hereby also make it available under the terms of the following
> (BSD-style) license...".  It extends the scope of IPR disclosures
> somewhat, but it would be a useful annotation.

I think this is fairly clearly excluded from the definition of
disclosures in RFC3979, but I can't see any reason why the IETF
(or the Trust) couldn't provide a repository for such licenses.

    Brian