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

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.

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."

This also impacts the inbound document, but that'll be a
separate
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_davidemc.com        Mobile: +1 (978) 394-7754
----------------------------------------------------

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Issue #1500 has been assigned to this issue.

Black_Davidemc.com wrote:
> 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.
>
> 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."
>
> This also impacts the inbound document, but that'll be
a separate
> 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_davidemc.com        Mobile: +1 (978) 394-7754
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ipr-wg mailing list
> Ipr-wgietf.org
> https:/
/www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg
>
>   


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Black_Davidemc.com writes:

> 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.

> 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.

/Simon

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