Simon Josefsson recently contacted me to bring my attention to his efforts to persuade the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the organization that publishes Internet standard documents, of which the Request for Comments (RFC) series is the best known.
Having read and participated in license analyses of the RFCs before on the debian-legal mailing list, it's my understanding that the RFCs done when Jon Postel headed up the IETF were and are under a DFSG-free license. However, when the Internet Society (ISOC) took the reins of the IETF after Postel's death, they changed the license to be, unfortunately, non-DFSG-free. (A bug about this was originally filed by me a little over four and a half years ago; that bug is still open and has been CCed.) Fortunately, the license does not require much modification to be made DFSG-free, thanks primarily to the fact that ISOC's interest in changing the license appears to be to guard the value of the names of itself and the IETF. That is, they don't want modified RFCs to carry their stamp of approval when that isn't actually the case. Several Debian developers have already signed Simon's petitition. When he contacted me, I suggested an update to his proposed new wording in the license, based on the -legal list's experience with trademarks and so-called "endorsement clauses". (You can find a high-level summary of these issues in my article "Managing Debian's Trademark"[1].) He accepted my suggestion. Because there is no delegated body within Debian with the portfolio "endorse efforts by third parties to achieve DFSG-free licensing on materials of interest to the Debian Project", I exercised my power under ยง5.1.4 of the Debian Constitution[2] to express the Project's support for his efforts. Naturally, I am willing to withdraw this support if the consensus view of the Project is that RFCs published since Jon Postel's passing should *not* be DFSG-free. You can read more about Simon's efforts at his website. I encourage you add your own name to the list of petitioners if you support his efforts. http://josefsson.org/bcp78broken/ [1] http://necrotic.deadbeast.net/~branden/blog/exuberance/Debian/trademark.html [2] http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution -- G. Branden Robinson Debian Project Leader [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://people.debian.org/~branden/
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