RE: [hackathon] What is the IPR policy for Hackathon? RE: [94all] IETF 94 - Hackathon Information

["Miaofuyou (Miao Fuyou)" <fuyou.miao@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for bringing this to IAOC, Benson!

 

A particular intricate problem is the potential IPR rule confliction between IETF and other open source community/foundation, if a project is brought to Hackathon from that community/foundation. This is especially problematic for patent, where usually many open sources require free licensing, contrastively IETF requires disclosure only if one knows.

 

-        Miao

 

From: Benson Schliesser [mailto:bensons@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2015 6:20 AM
To: Sam Hartman
Cc: Brian E Carpenter; IETF Discussion; Miaofuyou (Miao Fuyou); Charles Eckel (eckelcu); hackathon@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [hackathon] What is the IPR policy for Hackathon? RE: [94all] IETF 94 - Hackathon Information

 

On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 5:15 PM, Sam Hartman <hartmans-ietf@xxxxxxx> wrote:

>>>>> "Brian" == Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

    Brian> If somebody wants to provide their hackathon code to the
    Brian> IETF, they could submit an Internet Draft whose body consists
    Brian> of their code, between <CODE BEGINS> and <CODE ENDS>. Then it
    Brian> becomes an IETF contribution with a Simplified BSD licence,
    Brian> as I understand the IETF Trust's legal provisions.

[...]
I think marking something as code has nothing to do with the rights that
 the IETF gets, it only affects whether the rest of the world can
 actually use our contributions  in open-source contexts.

 

I think that both of you are correct, as quoted above.

 

Of course, please note well that a Contribution to the IETF does not necessarily have to take the form of a document. Thus, I think it is reasonable to question whether code developed during the Hackathon is considered a Contribution to the IETF. I am uncertain whether Hackathon code is inherently Contributed by nature of being developed under the Note Well etc, or whether its Contribution status is optional based on the author's intent. I believe the latter is the case, but that is an open question to be confirmed. I've asked the rest of the IAOC Legal Committee and the IETF's counsel to discuss this question.

 

Even if code developed at a Hackathon is a Contribution (either inherently or optionally), under IETF IPR rules the original author retains ownership rights to the work and thus should be able to contribute it to non-IETF open source projects as long as those projects accept contributions under a compatible license. Likewise, existing "outside" open source code that is used at a Hackathon is not necessarily a Contribution to the IETF unless the IPR owner (e.g. original author) intends for it to be Contributed. Both of these aspects (outgoing and incoming code) need to be described more clearly for the benefit of the Hackathon community, and so I've also asked the IAOC Legal Committee and IETF counsel to discuss this topic as well.

 

We will attempt to provide some additional guidance to the community after we've performed appropriate diligence.

 

-Benson