Fwd: [Trustees] Proposed Revisions to the IETF Trust LegalProvisions (TLP)

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Simon asked that this go to the IETF list.

Begin forwarded message:

From: Marshall Eubanks <tme@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 23, 2009 11:30:50 AM EDT
To: Simon Josefsson <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Trustees <trustees@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Trustees] Proposed Revisions to the IETF Trust LegalProvisions (TLP)


On Jun 23, 2009, at 10:18 AM, Simon Josefsson wrote:

"Contreras, Jorge" <Jorge.Contreras@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:


4.e -- this new section clarifies the legend requirements for Code
Components that are used in software under the BSD License.
In short,
the user must include the full BSD License text or a shorter pointer
to it (which is set forth in Section 6.d)
...
6.d -- the BSD legend/pointer described in 4.e above

The text in 6.d doesn't work. Part of the BSD license (quoted in your
document) is this paragraph:

Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

If you replace the BSD license with a pointer, you would violate that
part of the BSD license.

To avoid simple mistakes when changing things related to the
BSD license
(which now appears to be the norm rather than the exception) I believe
it would be a good idea for the IETF Trust to talk with people and
organizations who understands open source licensing.  I'm sure the
Software Freedom Law Center could help here.

Simon (removing the large cc list):

This language was added after extensive review and consultation with
open source experts, including members of the IESG. There are several open source projects (including some run by Yahoo) that use a pointer for the BSD license, rather than the full text. We do not think this is a violation of the BSD language. You may disagree, which is why there is a public comment period for these documents. But please don't assume that these decisions were taken rashly or without serious consideration.

Can you name the open source projects that operate like this?  I've
never heard of a model like this before, and I'm interested to learn
about it if it is used successfully.

Dear Simon;

There was a lot of discussion about this inside the Trust, and I was originally in favor of sticking with the BSD 15 line template and was very dubious about a "license by reference" approach. However, there was push-back on the length of this (from, e.g. Pasi Eronen), and then Russ found out that for YAHOO the

YUI JavaScript library and the Django web framework (used in
datatracker.ietf.org) don't include the license terms in every file.

The code contain this:

/*
Copyright (c) 2009, Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Code licensed under the BSD License:
http://developer.yahoo.net/yui/license.txt

It is not hard to find examples of this, both within Yahoo and without.
See, e.g., http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/docs/AttributeProvider.js.html

So, we researched the status of the BSD license in this regard.
I took it upon myself to query various people I know in the open software community (without, however, using the name of the Trust or saying that this is for the IETF - I am, myself, involved in OSS, including in
the GNUGK effort).

While the individual responses are private (I could certainly ask people if they mind being quoted, but I wanted to get this out today), typical is this :

"Yahoo is following common practice."

I did not receive a single negative response.

I also talked with corporate counsel from a large corporation with a heavy IETF involvement, who at least did not object to this.

In addition, the other Trustees did their own research, and this was discussed both internally and externally over a period of over 2 months.

And, of course, our own counsel, Jorge Contreras, researched this and agrees with the feasibility of the license by reference approach.

After all of this, the Trust developed consensus around the license by reference option.

So, I feel that the Trustees have done due diligence here.

Of course, there is never a final word on these matters. If you know reasons why this is inadvisable, I would be glad to hear them. That is, of course, why all of these matters go to community review.

I of course extend this request to everyone. It is important to get this right.

Regards
Marshall



Regards
Marshall




Which open source experts did you consult about licensing?

Providing background information and rationale behind changes when
posting drafts would give you the benefit of doubt about these issues, and would probably build more confidence in the change within the IETF
community.

/Simon


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