Re: IETF and open source license compatibility

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Simon Josefsson wrote:
Jari Arkko <jari.arkko@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

Simon,

That's not possible because the IETF policies does not permit free
software compatible licensing on Internet drafts published by the IETF.
...
See RFC 5378:

   It is also important to note that additional copyright notices are
   not permitted in IETF Documents except ...
...
The IETF copying conditions are not compatible with free software
licenses (modification is not allowed), and additional copyright notices
are not permitted.  The vast majority of free software licenses is built
on the concept of copyright notices and requires preserving the
copyright notice.
I agree that there are problematic case, but I believe I hope everyone
realizes this is only the case if the RFC in question has
code. Otherwise it really does not matter. Only some RFCs have code.

I don't realize that, and completely disagree.

Good point  Simon - lets amplify on that thought a tad...

   Whats the difference between the two of these statements?

   1 + 1 = 2

and

   One plus one equals two

One is a formula (i.e. code) and the other not? This is the same point I brought out about controls in I-D's and RFC's per se, the code can be in any numbers of forms including actual code (as encoded), pseudo code, or just the written description of that process. All of these form code in one derivative form or another and as such all of them need to be covered.
If you want free
software authors to publish free standards (as in free software
compatible) in the IETF, the IETF needs to allow free software
compatible licensing of their work.  Right now, the IETF disallow
standards published through the IETF to be licensed under a free
software compatible license.  The only alternative for these authors is
to release their work outside of the IETF.  This may result in some free
software authors doesn't bother publishing their work in the IETF
because the licensing models are incompatible.

I support experiments in this space, though. And it would be really
good to get more of the open source folk participate in IETF
specification work. There are many important open source extensions
and protocols that fit in IETF's scope but were never documented. Even
if source code is freely available, you could have several
implementations, commercial vs. open source interoperability issues,
etc.

I agree.

/Simon
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