Re: Copying conditions

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sob@xxxxxxxxxxx (scott bradner) writes:

>   For IDN, I want to be able to extract the tables from RFC 3454 and use
>   them in my implementation.
>
>   For Kerberos, I want to be able to use the ASN.1 schema in my
>   implementation, and copy the terminology section into my manual.
>
>   For SASL, I want to incorporate portions of the introduction section
>   from the RFC into my manual, to make sure some terminology is
>   explained correctly.
>
>   For GSS-API, I want to be able to copy the C header file with function
>   prototypes into my implementation.
>
> just so there is no misunderstanding - the intent of RFC 3668 was to
> permit such extractions and there was (and is) no desire to restrict 
> such extractions
>
> I, as editor, state publicly that I think that RFC 3667 permits such 
> extractions, we (or maybe I) may have not made that clear enough in
> RFC 3667, but I think that RFC 3667 supports these uses

I have received preliminary feedback from IPR specialists that seem to
indicate to me that neither the old RFC copying conditions, nor the
new copying conditions in RFC 3667, would permit all of the above
extractions into free software.

I am working on getting them to explain their reasoning on the Free
Software Foundation's web pages (presumably at [1]), which I believe
would be useful input for the IPR working group, but the process has
been slow.  I hope I'm not putting words in their mouth by stating
that my interpretation of what they said is that there is a problem.

Do the IETF care about free software enough to work on modifying the
copying conditions of future RFCs?

I think it is worrying that for me, with no legal training, I cannot
find any way to read the current license to permit me to do the above
things.  Now it seems some specialists agree with my interpretation.
To my reading, the new conditions do not give me any rights at all.

I'm hesitant about basing the legal ground of my projects against my
own, and our specialists, interpretation, based only on your expressed
intent of the text, posted to a mailing list.  My only "protection"
seem to be that would the ISOC/IETF sue me for infringing on their
IPR, I can only hope that others in the community would react
negatively.  I'd like to have more assurance than that, if possible.

Thanks,
Simon

[1] http://www.fsf.org/licenses/license-list.html

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