Re: IETF and open source license compatibility

["Steven M. Bellovin" <smb at cs.columbia.edu>]

On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 11:48:08 +0100
Simon Josefsson <simon at josefsson.org> wrote:

> "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb at cs.columbia.edu> writes:
> 
> > On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:38:44 +0100
> > Simon Josefsson <simon at josefsson.org> wrote:
> >
> >> The discussion started by Stephan suggesting that free software
> >> authors publish their work as free standards in the IETF.  My point
> >> was that since the IETF disallow publishing standards under a
> >> license that is compatible with free software licensing (e.g.,
> >> allows modification), it is not possible for free software authors
> >> to do this.  Thus, to me, this discussion is not related to
> >> comments in source code at all.
> >
> > My understanding of IETF policy is that the IETF will publish I-Ds
> > that are in the public domain.  Nothing is freer than that.  You're
> > perfectly free to put your text in the public domain before
> > submitting it for publication as an RFC.
> 
> Sure, but I can also put the text under the Microsoft EULA before
> submitting it for publication as an RFC.  The IETF still requires some
> assurances from me as contributor, and those assurances go beyond both
> what the public domain and the Microsoft EULA implies.
> 
> A more interesting question is if you can submit somebody else's
> public domain work to the IETF.  I don't know the answer to that.

Legally, yes; it's public domain.  Academic honesty and common courtesy
would demand an acknowledgment.

> It
> seems clear that I can't take a work licensed under the Microsoft
> EULA and submit it to the IETF though.
> 
Right, which is why I suggested public domain and not the Microsoft
EULA....

More generally: if the goal is to have some text that can be freely
used in any software -- proprietary, open source, GPL -- there's
nothing more amenable to that than public domain.  That may not meet
all of the FSF's goals, but I don't really see that that's the IETF's
problem.

		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb