Marshall,
I completely agree. I also don't want to have us start down the
path of rewriting text: most of what the IETF produces are
technical documents, not works of fiction, and the odds
significant rewriting screwing things up are high, perhaps a
near-certainty.
I also share your dislike for provisions whose validity we can
even guess at until they end up in front of a court. I don't
know what to do about that other that to rely on advice of
Counsel, but that doesn't stop me from preferring "this is a
well-tested approach" to "we hope it will work out this way".
But both your comments and that "can't get it right" issue just
reinforce my view that we either need an escape mechanism for
old text or need a model in which the Trust, not the submitters,
take responsibility for text Contributed to the IETF under older
rules. For the record, I don't know how to make the latter work
(partially because, like you, I try to avoid simulating a
lawyer) and am not proposing it. But, logically, it might be
the other possibility here.
john
--On Wednesday, 17 December, 2008 13:02 -0500 Marshall Eubanks
<tme@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Dear John;
>
> From your email :
>
> On Dec 17, 2008, at 12:16 PM, John C Klensin wrote:
>
>> (iii) Rewrite the document to remove any copyright
>> dependencies on text whose status is uncertain or for
>> which rights transfers are significantly difficult.
>>
>
> This is a dangerous solution, and may not be one at all.
>
> My mantra on these issues is : Engineers should not try and be
> lawyers.
>...
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