[Techspec] RE: RFC Author Count and IPR

If I remember correctly, we only limit the number of suthors on the
first page of the document. 

It is perfectly acceptable to list a longer set of names inside the
document in an contributors section.

I also have concerns about who should be listed as an "author" and
have copyrights when a work is developed by a WG. The demand to do
things with IETF documents beyond IETF standards work seems to be
growing, so it will be an increasingly difficult problem if we do not
identify all the people who contributed significant portions of a
document (where significant is of course open to debate).

dbh

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sam Hartman [mailto:hartmans-ietf@mit.edu] 
> Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 2:06 PM
> To: Russ Housley
> Cc: rfc-editor@rfc-editor.org; ietf@ietf.org; 
> techspec@ietf.org; ipr-wg@ietf.org
> Subject: Re: RFC Author Count and IPR
> 
> 
> >>>>> "Russ" == Russ Housley <housley@vigilsec.com> writes:
> 
>     Russ> I am concerned that the current RFC Editor practice that
>     Russ> limits the number of authors is in conflict with the IETF
>     Russ> IPR policies.  The RFC Editor currently limits the author
>     Russ> count to five people.  Recent IPR WG discussions make it
>     Russ> clear to me that authors retain significant copyright.
> 
> [There is this concept in US copyright law called a joint work.  I'm
> ignoring that concept for the moment basically because I don't
> understand how it applies to either software or text developed using
> an open process.  As far as I can tell, no one else understands it
> either.  Please be aware that this may be a huge gap in my advice.]
> 
> So, here we have a conflicting definitions problem.
> 
> The author of a work retains the copyright interest.  That's true if
> if I'm listed as an author or not.
> 
> If I write text and do not assign the copyright to someone, I retain
> copyright interest in that text.
> 
> So the sixth person still owns the copyright interest in the text
they
> write even if they are not listed.
> 
> That means if you have unlisted authors who have contributed
> significant chunks of text, you still need to get their clearance to
> do anything interesting with that text.
> 
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