RE: LC ISSUE: OUTGOING Section 6.3: vague s/w licensing guidance

[Black_David at emc.com]

Simon,

Thanks for weighing in on this.

> > I asked a lawyer to review the -outgoing document, and the following
> > text in Section 6.3 turned up a concern:
> >
> >    As such, the rough consensus is that the IETF trust is to grant
> >    rights such that code components of IETF contributions can be
> >    extracted, modified, and used by anyone in any way desired. 
> >
> > The concern is that the software licensing implications of that
> > text are not clear to someone who has not been following our
> > discussions and hence the text could be *misread* as permitting or
> > encouraging the use of licenses with copyleft (aka viral or
> > share-alike) and/or patent license provisions.
> >
> > While it should be the case that code in IETF RFCs can be placed
> > under almost any software license, (including those with copyleft
> > and patent license provisions), the IETF Trust should not be doing
> > so on its own initiative.
> 
> I disagree -- I believe the IETF Trust should do what the IETF asks
them
> to do.  Limiting them to some set of licenses at this point seems to
> short-circuit their ability to do their work.
> 
> There may be perfectly good reasons for the IETF Trust to release some
> set of contributions under, say, the GPL.  For example, consider
> software tools written for the IETF and assigned to the IETF Trust.

I think I agree with the latter paragraph, but let's focus on code in
Internet-Drafts and RFCs for now, and leave software tools for another
day.
 
> > Hence, in the outbound document, I think it would be good to add
> > a statement that the IETF Trust should avoid adding software license
> > obligations beyond those already present in a contribution, and
noting
> > that both copyleft and patent license provisions in software
licenses
> > depart from the goal of "extracted, modified and used by anyone in
> > any way desired," but also noting that the ability to place
extracted
> > code under such licenses is an important aspect of "use in any
> > way desired."
> 
> I think this is somewhat confused -- the IETF Trust must decide under
> which license outgoing contributions will be made available on.  They
> can't use the -incoming license as the outgoing rights, since that
> license only grants rights to the IETF Trust.  Thus, it is not trivial
> to see what "adding software license obligations" really mean.  Some
set
> of obligations -- e.g., crediting the copyright owner and/or author --
> may be perfectly fine.  The IETF Trust should be able to demand in a
> license that users of the contributions retain copyright and/or author
> notices.  Thus, I don't think your suggested modification is a good
> idea, at least not without much more detail and consideration to avoid
> unintended side effects.

The concern is about adding obligations to outbound licensing of code
in Internet-Drafts and RFCs when those obligations have the effect of
restricting practical usage of the code beyond what is necessary (e.g.,
necessary to comply with whatever inbound terms and conditions were
used).
Copyright acknowledgements are not a problem here.  To be specific,
(IMHO) the IETF Trust should not be adding copyleft, share alike or
patent license terms and conditions to licensing of outbound code -
such terms and conditions should only be used for code that was already
under corresponding terms and conditions when it came inbound.  Whether
and under what circumstances these sorts of terms and conditions are
allowed for inbound code is an inbound issue for the other thread.

Thanks,
--David
----------------------------------------------------
David L. Black, Senior Technologist
EMC Corporation, 176 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
+1 (508) 293-7953             FAX: +1 (508) 293-7786
black_david at emc.com        Mobile: +1 (978) 394-7754
----------------------------------------------------

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