RE: Who owns the Internet Rules?

["Lawrence Rosen" <lrosen at rosenlaw.com>]

John, 

> > Nothing is an RFC until the IETF says it is.
> 
> Actually, even that is not true.
> See RFCs 4844 - 4846.

Are you hinting that even my crazy relatives could publish an RFC on April 1
and declare it an official document? No input from anyone else who is a part
of the IETF process?

Why are we here? [Oh yes, I see the reference in RFC 4846 to "Satirical
materials."]

My *only* point in this thread was to point out that the copyrights in RFCs
are jointly own by the IETF Trust that coordinates and on whose collective
behalf the work is created. That is why all three RFCs 4844-4846 contain the
following copyright notice:

     Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).

This is how RFC 4844 itself summarizes our joint effort: "This document
describes the framework for an RFC Series and an RFC Editor function that
incorporate the principles of organized community involvement and
accountability that has become necessary as the Internet technical community
has grown, thereby enabling the RFC Series to continue to fulfill its
mandate."

And RFC 4846 says this: "In all cases, the ultimate decision to publish or
not publish, and with what text, rests with the RFC Editor." 

However much nonsense must intervene in order to turn a document into an
IETF-approved RFC is of no moment. Lord knows that lots of nonsense is
copyrighted. All that matters is that the IETF Trust jointly owns the
copyright in that nonsense and therefore need not ask anyone's permission to
use it.

/Larry



> -----Original Message-----
> From: John C Klensin [mailto:john-ietf at jck.com]
> Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 10:41 AM
> To: lrosen at rosenlaw.com
> Cc: 'Contreras, Jorge'; ipr-wg at ietf.org
> Subject: RE: Who owns the Internet Rules?
> 
> 
> 
> --On Thursday, April 16, 2009 09:03 -0700 Lawrence Rosen
> <lrosen at rosenlaw.com> wrote:
> 
> >...
> > Nothing is an RFC until the IETF says it is.
> 
> Actually, even that is not true.
> See RFCs 4844 - 4846.
> 
>    john