Thanks for publishing a new version of the document. There has beensome regressions in this version compared to earlier versions.
#1:
The latest version of the IETF Legal Provisions adds a new section 4.d.:
d. Attribution. In addition to the language required under the BSD License, each Code Component must be clearly attributed to IETF and identify the RFC or other IETF Document or IETF Contribution from which it is taken.
That license condition is beyond what the BSD license requires. Thatmeans the above license clause needs to be included in the license textof every code copied from a RFC, since the requirement applies to allmaterial derived from code extracted from an RFC.
It also means that code copied from an IETF document cannot be used as"BSD code", because the above restriction needs to be preserved in everymodified copy of the code.
This variation of the BSD license is original, and MAY be incompatiblewith some free software licenses; at least it does not appear to havebeen reviewed for compatibility by anyone familiar with free softwarelicensing.
It is important to use an already widely reviewed free software licenseinstead of inventing new licenses! There are plenty of examples of badthings that happen if this advice isn't followed, see [1] [2] for twohistories.
Explained in a different way, the above new addition is against what theIETF has expressed in draft-ietf-ipr-outbound-rights-07.txt:
As such, the rough consensus is that the IETF Trust is to grant rights such that code components of IETF contributions can be extracted, modified, and used by anyone in any way desired.
The new clause 4.d. is incompatible with the expressed wish of the IETF,in my reading. The outbound-rights-07 document doesn't say anythingabout preserving attribution for code components.
The concern regarding code attribution was discussed in the IPR WG along time ago, when people brought up similar ideas about requiringattributions. As far as I could tell, no consensus developed, andconsequently the document didn't say anything related to attribution forcode components.
Please remove section 4.d completely.
#2:
There is another addition to section 4.c of the new document version:
c. License. Code Components are hereby licensed to each person who wishes to receive such a license on the terms of the “BSD License”, as follows (in addition to any licenses granted with respect to the text of such Code Components as they appear in IETF Contributions or IETF Documents pursuant to Section 3 above):
The text inside the parenthesis is new.
The use of the word "in addition to" implies that the code componentswill NOT be strictly licensed only under the BSD license, but under adual-license of the BSD license and the restrictive license (for text inRFCs) in section 3 of the document. That is likely what is intendedtoo: code components should be possible to use just like text from RFCsunder the normal (section 3) IETF rules.
In a dual-license situation, to be able to use the code component underonly the BSD license, the license needs to grant you the right to dropone of the license texts for it.
This is the same problem as explained in my initial comment on thisdocument, see #1 in:
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.ipr/5360
What is missing is text such as the following:
The licensee can chose whether to use the BSD License or the Section 3 rules when extracting this component.
Once a licensee has extracted a component under the BSD license, thatversion cannot later be used under the IETF section 3 rules.
Alternatively, you could adopt the suggestion I made in my initialcomment: clearly say that licensee can use the BSD license as the ONLYlicense for extracted code components. This would avoid much confusionabout which license applies to code components extracted from RFCs.
The text to add would be:
To clarify, the entire license for Code Components is the above BSD license, and if you use this license for a Code Component, the license terms in section 3 does not apply to that material.
#3:
The URL given for "common code components" doesn't work:www.ietf.org/trust/code.
Thanks,/Simon
[1] http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/gpl-compatible.html[2] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html
"Ed Juskevicius" <edj@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> This is to announce that the IETF Trustees have just> posted a revised version of a draft policy on > "Legal Provisions Related to IETF Documents" dated> 08-05-08 at:> http://trustee.ietf.org/policyandprocedures.html>> This draft includes all of the changes agreed during> the July 31st meeting of the IPR working group held> in Dublin.>> On behalf of the IETF Trustees, we invite your> review and final comments and suggestions on this> policy. >> The IETF Trustees will meet via telechat on Aug 21st> with the goal of finalizing this policy. If you> have any final comments, please post them on the> IPR WG mailing list. >> Best Regards, and Thanks in advance, >>> Ed Juskevicius Ray Pelletier> Chair Trustee> IETF Trust IETF Administrative Director_______________________________________________Ietf mailing listIetf@xxxxxxxxxxxxx://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf