Hi John,
It’s less about change any policy or about removing CC by 4.0 and is about making sure we’re following the rules the IETF has selected for its content, and being consistent when doing so.
Currently, the Wiki is not consistent since it is calling out both CC by 4.0 and Note Well as applying.
The Wiki is showing both on the footer of pages as boiler plate:
Content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution License, by IETF Trust (CC BY 4.0). All content is covered by the
IETF Note Well. | Powered by Wiki.js
And in the basic info on the wiki:
Welcome to the IETF Community Wiki
This is a community wiki for IETF participants to use. It replaces the previous structure of trac wikis where each working group/team had its own trac instance.
The IETF Note Well applies to all content on this wiki, and it is referenced on
every page.
CC by 4.0 is being blanket applied to all pages, and also citing Note Well which in turn pulls in BCP 78 and BCP 79 which in turn pull in RFC 5378 and its rules for IETF Contributions etc.
It may be that the key issue is that the Wiki should not blanket apply CC by 4.0 to all content and that individual pages need different rules.
What license applies to what content?
-----
If you look at the IETF Trust’s cheat sheet on licenses (https://trustee.ietf.org/assets/the-ietf-trusts-copyrights-and-licenses/).
You’ll see that CC by 4.0 is correct for use on general information, but not for IETF Contributions.
Content created to help with meetings, room booking, instructions to Chairs etc, is all fine with CC by 4.0.
However, working group content – aka stuff that’s IETF Contributions to the standards making process and should not by CC by 4.0 – is also in the wiki. See :
https://wiki.ietf.org/en/group/mops/rfc9317-additional-resources
You may note in this second page citation, that the IETF Trust boilerplate on copyright also appears in the text. That’s correct btw for the type of content, but it’s in conflict with the CC by 4.0 on the
page bottom.
Does additional background help?
So not so much as policy change, but more of a making sure the IETF is following the rules is has established for its different kinds of content.
Regards
Glenn
On 2/15/23, 10:48 AM, "Trustees" <trustees-bounces@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jay and Trustees,
(I've taken the liberty of copying the IETF list because this
type of licensing change appears to affect the entire community,
not just those who are participating in or following tools
development.)
I think the principle of moving from CC to IETF-specific rules
is just fine. However, I question whether doing so by
referencing/ incorporating the Note Well is a good way to
accomplish that. The problem as I see it is that the Note Well
is a somewhat informal narrative document that points to other
things. Those other things get careful review and are clearly
community consensus documents. The Note Well is more
explanatory, has been revised with less formal determination of
community consensus, and has evolved to contain considerable
material that has nothing to do with IPR. The current version
now even begins "This is a reminder of IETF policies...".
Telling someone who is, e.g., about to join a mailing list or
participate in a meeting to go read the Note Well and understand
and accept what it includes (directly and by reference) is, IMO,
fine. But we have changed it many times to make it more clear
(also a good thing) without detailed community review and
approval. Nothing wrong with that either, as long as it is
narrative/ explanatory. But, where things move from an
explanation to participants and a collection of pointers to an
actual license, I think that license should be referencing
primary materials, or at least an easily located Trust document
that does so, not less formal narrative/ explanatory text,
especially when the latter contains irrelevant material.
best,
john
--On Wednesday, February 15, 2023 15:52 +0000 Jay Daley
<exec-director@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> This is a heads up that the IETF Trust have asked us to change
> the licensing on the IETF wiki (and by implication our other
> user-editable wikis) from CC BY 4.0 to "All content is covered
> by the IETF Note Well" as they are concerned that our wikis
> contain contributions to the standards process and these are
> not normally licensed under CC By 4.0. We will be making this
> change on Friday.
>
> We are also talking to the Trust about how to ensure that
> contributions to the wiki are managed in accordance with RFC
> 5378. This may require some significant changes in the
> contribution and content management model for the wikis. I am
> hopeful that the Trust will raise this directly with the
> community in due course.
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