Ed,
I'd like to thank the Trustees for working to resolve this
situation. Unfortunately, after reviewing the new text, I don't think
it's really adequate.
To recap, the the old text required the contributor to affirm (and
consequently to verify) that adequate permissions had been obtained to
publish legacy (pre-5378) material under the 5378 rules. This was
impractical both because of the difficulty of obtaining such
permissions and the difficulty of tracing every portion of the
document. This new text, reproduced below, solves the first problem,
but not the second:
This document contains material from IETF Documents or IETF
Contributions published before November 10, 2008 and, to the
Contributor?s knowledge, the person(s) controlling the copyright in
such material have not granted the IETF Trust the right to allow
modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process.
Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling
the copyright, this document may not be modified outside the IETF
Standards Process, and derivative works of it may not be created
outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format it for
publication as an RFC and to translate it into languages other than
English.
The first problem here is the phrase "and, to the Contributor's
knowledge, the person(s) controlling the copyright in such material
have not granted the IETF Trust the right...". As I read this, I am
directly affirming my belief that there are copyright holders who have
not granted these rights. This is all fine if I know exactly who the
original copyright holders are and that they have not given
permission, but the more likely case is that I don't know one way or
the other, and am simply unwilling to affirm the converse.
However, I am equally unwilling to affirm my knowledge and belief
that the persons controlling the copyright have not made grants.
I simply don't know. This text should be rewritten as:
This document contains material from IETF Documents or IETF
Contributions published before November 10, 2008. Some material
may be subject to copyright claims for which the holders have not
granted the IETF Trust the right to allow modifications of such
material outside the IETF Standards Process.
In addition, the final sentence "Without obtaining..." seems overly
strong. It's phrased as if it were a condition imposed by the
contributor, i.e., I the contributor doesn't license you to use
this document unless you obtain "adequate" permission from the original
copyright holders (with the contributor to be the judge of adequate,
perhaps). But that's not what's in play here. Rather,
it's that I the contributor can't give me license to material
I don't control. So, this sentence serves as advice, not
a license restriction and should be rewritten accordingly.
Perhaps:
Modification or creation of derivative works outside of the
scope of RFC 4978 may require obtaining a license from the
person(s) controlling the copyright on the relevant sections
of the document.
Best,
-Ekr
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