On the best use of IETF resources with respect to IPR

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At 12:57 PM +0100 2/13/09, Simon Josefsson wrote:
>I believe it is possible to find proprietary licenses that have other
>clauses that render the license incompatible with the IETF Trust
>license.  So the problem is wider than just free software licenses.  I
>believe the IETF needs to realize that GPL software runs part of the
>Internet and that catering to these licensing needs is as important as
>catering to the licensing needs of, say, Microsoft.

I have not seen the IETF spend much time trying to cater to the licensing needs of, say, Microsoft.

>The license compatibility question is more relevant for free software
>because people are more conservative in evaluating software licenses in
>the free software community compared to the enterprise setting where
>licenses are typically only ever evaluated when someone sues or is sued
>by someone.

So, in essence, you are saying "because there is a community of developers who have a particular way of evaluating licenses, the IETF should spend a lot of time trying to cater to them".

>My point has been that triggering this situation works counter to the
>goal of the IETF. 

Please specifically state "the goal". I believe that you will find that it is, in fact, not a goal that is widely-held in the IETF.

>In a strict setting, it means implementers cannot use
>verbatim text from RFCs,

s/implementers/a subset of implementers who have a particular way of evaluating licenses/

> but needs to rewrite the text to avoid re-use
>of material under the IETF Trust license.  I believe that opens up for
>interoperability problems (when a re-written comment is subtly different
>from the original meaning, and the comment influences code).  If people
>decide that this rewriting needs to happen to avoid contamination from
>the IETF Trust license, it would also delay getting IETF protocols
>deployed.

...by those developers.

>This has been my rationale for suggesting that IETF documents should be
>licensed under a free software compatible license. 

They are already licensed that way, for one common understanding of "free software compatible license". You have a different understanding for your purposes. You are (repeatedly) asking us to change our license for your understanding.

>I am aware that
>battle is already lost, so I have mixed feelings about discussing this
>further. 

...so you launched dozens of people with much less understanding than you into sending one-way comments on the topic. In the future, please check your mix of feelings more carefully.

>Generally, however, I think this question is very different from where
>this thread started.  It started, as far as I consider, with Stephan
>suggesting that free software authors publish "free" (as in licensed
>under a free software license) standards in the IETF.  That is not
>possible

...by your interpretation, but clearly is possible by other people's interpretation...

>, and is unrelated to the question we discuss here.  I'm happy
>to discuss both questions, but I'm concerned that you and others may
>believe that you dispute my first claim by discussing this separate
>issue.
>
>> With the GPL text, you don't have the copyright, and you don't have a
>> license that permits modified versions. But you do have the right to
>> copy it.
>>
>> With the excerpt from an RFC, you don't have the copyright, and you
>> don't have a license that permits modified versions. But you do have
>> the right to copy it - you even have the right to copy pieces of it.
>>
>> Why are you insisting that the first is perfectly reasonable, and the
>> second is a show-stopper?
>
>I'm not saying the second is a show stopper.  The Internet appears to
>work relatively well on most days.  However, I insist that it is a
>potential impediment and that it works counter to the goals of the IETF.

Your recent actions make it sound like you feel that it is a better use of IETF time to do work to make a subset of developers who have one particular view of licensing happy than to develop the technology we are good at. I propose that the opposite is true.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium
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