Ted Hardie asked me: > Are you willing to personally indemnify the individuals who are later > sued by those who don't hold this view or are you willing to pay for > the appropriate insurance cover? Of course not. Are you (or your company) warning me that *you* might sue me for infringement of anything you contributed to a joint industry standard RFC? If so, thanks for the warning. Now, I'll ignore it. As I hope will most of the people and companies who rely on IETF RFCs. You can't threaten me by listing hundreds of people who had something to do with an RFC in the past. Or make me beg you or your company or any of those people for permission in order to treat an industry standard as a part of our common heritage with the authority in the IETF Trust to deal with it (as a copyrighted document) as it wishes in the public interest. > It would be reasonable for everyone in that list to believe that > their work could be re-used within the IETF context (it post > dates RFC 2026 sufficiently for that). We have now changed > the rules such that their work can be used in other contexts, > provided the Trust authorizes it; prior to that, the individuals > would have had to authorize it. Under US law, a joint copyright owner doesn't have to ask anyone's permission to change the rules. Sorry you don't like that. Or are you threatening to sue the IETF Trust if it changes the rules? Based on what legal principle? /Larry > -----Original Message----- > From: Ted Hardie [mailto:hardie@xxxxxxxxxxxx] > Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 11:42 AM > To: lrosen@xxxxxxxxxxxx; 'IETF Discussion' > Subject: RE: [Trustees] ANNOUNCEMENT: The IETF Trustees invite your > reviewand comments on a proposed Work-Around to the Pre-5378 Problem > > At 11:09 AM -0800 1/9/09, Lawrence Rosen wrote: > >We should accept the notion that IETF, and > >now the IETF Trust, as a public interest corporation that manages the > >expressive creative activities through which these joint works are > written, > >is the joint owner of copyright in every RFC. As such, a license from the > >IETF Trust is all we need to create derivative works, without even asking > >the co-authors of those old (or new) documents. > > > >Does anyone here believe that the IETF Trust doesn't own a joint > copyright > >interest in every RFC it publishes and can thus authorize derivative > works > >of those RFCs? [1] > > Are you willing to personally indemnify the individuals who are later > sued by those who don't hold this view or are you willing to pay for > the appropriate insurance cover? > > Take a look for a moment at RFC 2822. It is a successor to a document > that does not contain an ISOC copyright (because ISOC came into being > approximately 10 years later). It does have an ISOC copyright > but RFC 2822 also has a very extensive list of contributors: > > Matti Aarnio Barry Finkel Larry Masinter > Tanaka Akira Erik Forsberg Denis McKeon > Russ Allbery Chuck Foster William P McQuillan > Eric Allman Paul Fox Alexey Melnikov > Harald Tveit Alvestrand Klaus M. Frank Perry E. Metzger > Ran Atkinson Ned Freed Steven Miller > Jos Backus Jochen Friedrich Keith Moore > Bruce Balden Randall C. Gellens John Gardiner Myers > Dave Barr Sukvinder Singh Gill Chris Newman > Alan Barrett Tim Goodwin John W. Noerenberg > John Beck Philip Guenther Eric Norman > J. Robert von Behren Tony Hansen Mike O'Dell > Jos den Bekker John Hawkinson Larry Osterman > D. J. Bernstein Philip Hazel Paul Overell > James Berriman Kai Henningsen Jacob Palme > Norbert Bollow Robert Herriot Michael A. Patton > Raj Bose Paul Hethmon Uzi Paz > Antony Bowesman Jim Hill Michael A. Quinlan > Scott Bradner Paul E. Hoffman Eric S. Raymond > Randy Bush Steve Hole Sam Roberts > Tom Byrer Kari Hurtta Hugh Sasse > Bruce Campbell Marco S. Hyman Bart Schaefer > Larry Campbell Ofer Inbar Tom Scola > W. J. Carpenter Olle Jarnefors Wolfgang Segmuller > Michael Chapman Kevin Johnson Nick Shelness > Richard Clayton Sudish Joseph John Stanley > Maurizio Codogno Maynard Kang Einar Stefferud > Jim Conklin Prabhat Keni Jeff Stephenson > R. Kelley Cook John C. Klensin Bernard Stern > Steve Coya Graham Klyne Peter Sylvester > Mark Crispin Brad Knowles Mark Symons > Dave Crocker Shuhei Kobayashi Eric Thomas > Matt Curtin Peter Koch Lee Thompson > Michael D'Errico Dan Kohn Karel De Vriendt > Cyrus Daboo Christian Kuhtz Matthew Wall > Jutta Degener Anand Kumria Rolf Weber > Mark Delany Steen Larsen Brent B. Welch > Steve Dorner Eliot Lear Dan Wing > Harold A. Driscoll Barry Leiba Jack De Winter > Michael Elkins Jay Levitt Gregory J. Woodhouse > Robert Elz Lars-Johan Liman Greg A. Woods > Johnny Eriksson Charles Lindsey Kazu Yamamoto > Erik E. Fair Pete Loshin Alain Zahm > Roger Fajman Simon Lyall Jamie Zawinski > Patrik Faltstrom Bill Manning Timothy S. Zurcher > Claus Andre Farber John Martin > > It would be reasonable for everyone in that list to believe that > their work could be re-used within the IETF context (it post > dates RFC 2026 sufficiently for that). We have now changed > the rules such that their work can be used in other contexts, > provided the Trust authorizes it; prior to that, the individuals > would have had to authorize it. To let the Trust authorize that without > explicit permission requires us to believe that everyone in that > list (and every other similar list) either believed at the time > that their work could be so used, believes now that it can > be so used, or is sufficiently laissez-faire that they won't > do anything to stop it, even if they don't agree. > > My reading of John's point is that this creates either a coordination > burden or a legal risk for the authors re-using text created prior to > the new rules. He doesn't want to bear that burden/risk, and I don't > think the Trust can (because it would have to analyze each document > prior to assuming it, as it would be otherwise trivial for > someone to submit a draft that clearly had no permission from > the copyright holders). > > He wants an out that says "I'm granting these rights to > my text, you worry about any other rights". As a transition > to text based on documents written within the new rules, > that may be the way to go. What none of us wants is to > have to restart this conversation at ground zero, because a lot > of the other rights (like re-using code) set out in the new > document should be applying to new work in new drafts now. > > Just my two cents, untarnished by law degrees or other > impediments. > regards, > Ted Hardie _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf