Re: #1400 Opinion poll - question draft

[John C Klensin <john-ietf at jck.com>]

--On Tuesday, 05 December, 2006 08:54 +0100 Harald Tveit
Alvestrand <harald at alvestrand.no> wrote:

> This issue is now #1400 in the tracker.
> 
> And I think it's time for one of my (in)famous opinion polls.
> 
> First - let's see if I can get the question right. If it's OK,
> we'll go on to state opinions. So please do NOT spend
> bandwidth on stating your opinion now - this is about whether
> the question is right.
>...

Harald, I don't think it is quite right because I think the text
you are using as examples (both versions) does not properly
capture one aspect of the discussions.   Without proposing
specific text (and further complicating the discussion), my
understanding of where we are is that we have agreed to

	(i) unlimited copying, [re]distribution, and translation
	of full text, with attribution.
	
	(ii) nearly the same permissions for excerpts, also on
	condition of attribution.

and the debate is about rights in addition to those.  If that is
not a correct formulation so far, then I am seriously confused
and the rest of this note can probably be safely ignored.

Now, with regard to those other rights, you've made a relatively
big deal (IMO) about adapting code for use in specific contexts,
e.g., mapping from one programming language or data structure
representation to another.   I think those are non-issues and
should be dealt with by (explicitly if necessary) simply making
them special cases of "translation" above.  You should check
with Jorge, but I believe that there is some case law supporting
interpreting those types of modifications as "translation", even
without very explicit definitions.

I assert, without taking a position as to whether it is the
right thing to do, that, with a proper definition of
"translation", all of the rights needed to strictly implement a
standard are covered by "copy, extract, distribute, and
translate" or words to that effect.  

An assertion that a standard will not be implemented unless
additional rights are available appears to me to require a
separate question, noting that similar assertions have been made
about IPR options and restrictions (such as RAND on underlying
patents) that we explicitly permit.

If that separation were made, then the question you would be
asking would be about precisely the two issues where the
controversy lies, i.e., 

(i) whether unlimited modification of "code", for any purpose,
is to be permitted, and

(ii) if so, whether that is best accomplished by the IETF
obtaining and granting "outbound rights" or whether it is better
accomplished by the type of parallel licensing mechanism that
has been discussed on and off since San Diego.

      john




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