John C Klensin wrote:
But both your comments and that "can't get it right" issue just
reinforce my view that we either need an escape mechanism for
old text or need a model in which the Trust, not the submitters,
take responsibility for text Contributed to the IETF under older
rules. For the record, I don't know how to make the latter work
(partially because, like you, I try to avoid simulating a
lawyer) and am not proposing it.
I have held off proposing this latter view, because I've assumed it was obvious
and that those expert in the legal issues rejected it.
But from a practical standpoint, it is the most accurate representation of work
done on IETF documents (within the working gorup structure.)
That is: Working groups are part of the IETF and 'authors' of working group
documents are acting as when writing IETF documents.agents of the IETF. While
there might be underlying intellectual property owned by the companies that
authors work for, the actual document is commissioned by, and copyright should
be owned by, the IETF.
Let me carry it further: When Erik Huizer and I wrote the first IETF Working
Group Guidelines document, it was at our initiative. (Well, really, Erik's.)
When it was adopted by the IETF, I automatically assumed that the IETF owned it.
That is, after all, what we assert when outside technology is brought into the
IETF and we insist that they are handing over "change control". What is change
control if not the authority to make changes to the document?
So when Scott Bradner did the revision to the IETF Working Group Guidelines
document the idea that he had a legal obligation to get our permission would
have -- and certainly now does -- strike me as silly.
That's me talking as a participant, about pragmatics, not me pretending to be a
attorney, talking about copyright law.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
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