Subject: [ippm] FYI: Issues with RFC 5378 and progressing documents to RFC

From: Matthew J Zekauskas <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:42:51 -0500

The IETF Chair has asked that all working group members be advised of
the current discussion surrounding RFC 5378 (see attached forwarded
file).  A pointer to the original message is here:
<http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg54839.html>
and apparently also
<http://trustee.ietf.org/docs/Background-to-Draft-Update-to-IETF-Trust-Legal-Provisions.txt>

Marshall Eubanks sent the following summary to his working group:

      "... This is a complicated subject, but the executive summary is
that if you have an Internet-draft that quotes substantially from one or
more older RFCs (ones with a publication date pre-November 11, 2008),
and you did not write this earlier work yourself (or you wrote it while
with another company), you need to be aware of the likely difficulty of
obtaining RFC5378 clearances for your new work, and also to be aware
that a work-around is on the way. The work-around should be in place to
allow submissions to the San Francisco IETF well before the normal
deadlines. See the attached text for more details."

It may be that quoting other contributions (email, mic discussion) could
also require clearance.

Eric Rescorla added more detail in the message to his working group:

     "If you've been following the IETF mailing list, you may be aware
of the ongoing discussion about the impact of RFC 5378 on revised draft
submissions. Briefly, RFC 5378 requires Contributors to grant a more
expansive set of rights than were granted by RFC 3978, and 4748. If you
are submitting a document which contains text contributed by others
prior to the publication of RFC 5378 you may need to obtain additional
rights from the copyright holders of that text in order to contribute
under the 5378 terms."

My understanding is that this does not prevent development of documents,
only what rights need to be granted at RFC publication (and the
additional rights are for potential use outside the IETF process), so it
should not stop work.  (Eric added that he was waiting for the
resolution before publishing further drafts, however.)  Russ Housley
gave some advice in a separate message:
<http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg54957.html>

Discussion about specific points relating to IPPM documents are welcome
here.  Discussion about RFC 5378 and any changes to RFC 5378 should be
taken to the IETF discussion list <[email-masked]>, and are off-topic on
the ippm list.

If anyone feels this is a major problem for them, please let the chairs
know.

--Matt

Subject: Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: The IETF Trustees invite your review and comments on a proposed Work-Around to the Pre-5378 Problem
From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:00:05 -0500
List-Id: Working Group Chairs <wgchairs.ietf.org>

WG Chairs:

Please make sure that your WG, and especially your document authors, 
are aware of this situation.  Please follow the discussion on the 
IETF Discussion list, and keep the WG informed about the way forward 
as it develops.

Thanks,
   Russ

>From: "Ed Juskevicius" <[email-masked]>
>To: "'IETF Discussion'" <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>,
>         <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>,
>         <[email-masked]>
>Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 16:43:50 -0500
>Cc: 'Trustees' <[email-masked]>
>Subject: [Trustees] ANNOUNCEMENT: The IETF Trustees invite your review and
>         comments on a proposed Work-Around to the Pre-5378 Problem
>
>The purpose of this message is twofold:
>
>1) To summarize the issues that some members of our community
>    have experienced since the publication of RFC 5378 in November 2008,
>    and
>2) To invite community review and discussion on a potential work-around
>    being considered by the IETF Trustees.
>
>Some I-D authors are having difficulty implementing RFC 5378.  An
>example of the difficulty is as follows:
>
>   - an author wants to include pre-5378 content in a new submission
>     or contribution to the IETF, but
>   - s/he is not certain that all of the author(s) of the earlier
>     material have agreed to license it to the IETF Trust according
>     to RFC 5378.
>
>If an I-D author includes pre-5378 material in a new document, then s/he
>must represent or warrant that all of the authors who created the
>pre-5378 material have granted rights for that material to the IETF Trust.
>If s/he cannot make this assertion, then s/he has a problem.
>
>This situation has halted the progression of some Internet-Drafts and
>interrupted the publication of some RFCs.  The Trustees of the IETF Trust
>are investigating ways to implement a temporary work-around so that IETF
>work can continue to progress.  A permanent solution to this "pre-5378
>problem" may require an update to RFC 5378, for example new work by the
>community to create a 5378-bis document.
>
>The remainder of this message provides an outline of the temporary work-
>around being considered by the Trustees.
>
>RFC 5378 sections 1.j and 5.3.c provide the IETF Trust with the
>authority to develop legend text for authors to use in situations where
>they wish to limit the granting of rights to modify and prepare
>derivatives of the documents they submit.  The Trustees used this
>authority in 2008 to develop and adopt the current "Legal Provisions
>Relating to IETF Documents" which are posted at:
>http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info/.
>
>The Trustees are now considering the creation of optional new legend text
>which could be used by authors experiencing the "pre-5378 problem".
>
>The new legend text, if implemented, would do the following:
>
>   a. Provide Authors and Contributors with a way to identify (to the
>      IETF Trust) that their contributions contain material from pre-5378
>      documents for which RFC 5378 rights to modify the material outside
>      the IETF standards process may not have been granted, and
>
>   b. Provide the IETF Trust and the community with a clear indication
>      of every document containing pre-5378 content and having the
>      "pre-5378 problem".
>
>So, how could the creation and use of some new legend text help people
>work-around the pre-5378 problem?
>
>The proposed answer is as follows:
>
>   1. Anyone having a contribution with the "pre-5378" problem should add
>      new legend text to the contribution, to clearly flag that it includes
>      pre-5378 material for which all of the rights needed under RFC 5378
>      may not have been granted, and
>
>   2. The IETF Trust will consider authors and contributors (with the
>      pre-5378 problem) to have met their RFC 5378 obligations if the
>      new legend text appears on their documents, and
>
>   3. Authors and contributors should only resort to adding the new
>      legend text to their documents (per #1) if they cannot develop
>      certainty that all of the author(s) of pre-5378 material in
>      their documents have agreed to license the pre-5378 content to
>      the IETF Trust according to RFC 5378.
>
>The proposed wording for the new legend text is now available for your
>review and comments in section 6.c.iii of a draft revision to the
>IETF Trust's "Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents" located at
>http://trustee.ietf.org/policyandprocedures.html.
>
>Please note that the above document also contains new text in section 5.c
>dealing with "License Limitations".
>
>If your review and feedback on this proposed work-around is positive,
>then the new text may be adopted by the Trustees in early February 2009,
>and then be published as an official revision to the Legal Provisions
>document.  If so adopted, Internet-Drafts with pre-5378 material may
>advance within the Internet standards process and get published as RFCs
>where otherwise qualified to do so.  Unless covered by sections 6.c.i or
>6.c.ii, authors of documents in which there is no pre-5378
>material must provide a RFC 5378 license with no limitation on
>modifications outside the IETF standards process.
>
>The IETF Trust will not grant the right to modify or prepare derivative
>works of any specific RFC or other IETF Contribution outside the IETF
>standards process until RFC 5378 rights pertaining to that document have
>been obtained from all authors and after compliance by the IETF Trust
>with RFC 5377.  The Trustees will establish one or more mechanisms by
>which authors of pre-5378 documents may grant RFC 5378 rights.
>
>The Trustees hereby invite your review, comments and suggestions on this
>proposed work-around to the "pre-5378 problem".  The period for this review
>is 30 days.  Microsoft WORD and PDF versions of the proposed revisions are
>attached to this message.  Copies are also available on the IETF Trust
>website under the heading "DRAFT Policy and Procedures Being Developed" at:
>http://trustee.ietf.org/policyandprocedures.html
>
>All feedback submitted before the end of February 7th will be considered by
>the Trustees.  A decision on whether to move forward with this proposal will
>be made and communicated to you before the end of February 15th.
>
>Please give this your attention.
>
>Regards and Happy New Year !
>
>Ed Juskevicius, on behalf of the IETF Trustees
>[email-masked]

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---

From: Matthew J Zekauskas <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:10:20 -0500

The latest update.  Again, to discuss this particular issue, please go
to the general IETF list, [email-masked].

--Matt

Subject: ANNOUNCEMENT: The IETF Trustees invite your comments on revised proposed legend text to work-around the Pre-5378 Problem
From: "Ed Juskevicius" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>, <[email-masked]>
Cc: 'Trustees' <[email-masked]>, "'Contreras, Jorge'" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 00:29:33 -0500
List-Id: IETF-Discussion <ietf.ietf.org>

This message is in follow-up to the IETF Trustees' request for community
review (announced on January 6, 2009) on some new legend text intended to
help authors work around the "pre-5378 problem".  

Please recall that some I-D authors have experienced difficulty implementing
RFC5378 since it was published on November 10, 2008.  An example of the
difficulty is summarized below:
  - an author wants to include pre-5378 content in a new submission
    or contribution to the IETF, but
  - the author is not able to assert that every author of the pre-5378
    content has agreed (or would agree) to license the earlier material
    for use outside of the IETF Standards Process

As a result of the above situation, many authors have reported they can not
submit or progress new contributions, because the legend text authorized by
the Trustees in November 2008 had no provisions for dealing with this
"pre-5378" problem. 

The Trustees met with legal counsel on January 22nd to discuss the comments
and suggestions which you have provided since January 6th.  We have received
many excellent suggestions for ways to clarify and improve the draft legend
text, and we are grateful for this.  

Based on the feedback received to date, the Trustees are now proposing a few
changes to the draft legend text. 

The 'old' legend text (as posted for community review on 2009-01-06) was:

> 6. Text To Be Included in IETF Documents
> c. Derivative Works and Publication Limitations
> iii.  If a Contribution includes Pre-5378 Material and the Contributor
> does not wish to allow modifications of such Pre-5378 Material to be
> made outside the IETF Standards Process:
>
> This document contains material from IETF Documents or IETF Contributions
> published before November 10, 2008 and, to the Contributor's knowledge,
> the person(s) controlling the copyright in such material have not granted
> the IETF Trust the right to allow modifications of such material outside
> the IETF Standards Process.  Without obtaining an adequate license from
> the person(s) controlling the copyright, this document may not be modified
> outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may not be
> created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format it for
> publication as an RFC and to translate it into languages other than
> English.

The updated proposed legend text based on the discussion to date is as
follows: 

This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF Contributions
published or made publicly available before November 10, 2008. The person(s)
controlling the copyright in some of this material may not have granted the
IETF Trust the right to allow modifications of such material outside the
IETF Standards Process. Without obtaining an adequate license from the
person(s) controlling the copyright in such materials, this document may not
be modified outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it
may not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format it
for publication as an RFC and to translate it into languages other than
English.

The Trustees invite your comments on the updated proposed legend text. We
believe the updated text incorporates the feedback we have received to date,
and we hope it clarifies the proposed legend.

The Trustees will meet again in early February to decide on whether to
revise the Trust License Policy based on the ongoing community discussion.
If so decided, a revision to the Trust's "Legal Provisions Relating to IETF
Documents" policy will be published.  Please refer to the attached PDF file
for an example of how the Legal Provisions document might look if today's
update to proposed legend text is adopted. A softcopy is available on the
IETF Trust website under the heading "DRAFT Policy and Procedures Being
Developed" at:
http://trustee.ietf.org/policyandprocedures.html 

If you have any comments on the updated proposed legend text, please post
them before the end of February 7th.  The Trustees need to decide on whether
to adopt the proposed legend text, and then communicate our decision to you
on or before February 15th.

Regards,

Ed Juskevicius, on behalf of the IETF Trustees
[email-masked]
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[email-masked]
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