At 12:57 PM +0100 2/13/09, Simon Josefsson wrote: >I believe it is possible to find proprietary licenses that have other >clauses that render the license incompatible with the IETF Trust >license. So the problem is wider than just free software licenses. I >believe the IETF needs to realize that GPL software runs part of the >Internet and that catering to these licensing needs is as important as >catering to the licensing needs of, say, Microsoft.
I have not seen the IETF spend much time trying to cater to the licensing needs of, say, Microsoft. >The license compatibility question is more relevant for free software >because people are more conservative in evaluating software licenses in >the free software community compared to the enterprise setting where >licenses are typically only ever evaluated when someone sues or is sued >by someone. So, in essence, you are saying "because there is a community of developers who have a particular way of evaluating licenses, the IETF should spend a lot of time trying to cater to them". >My point has been that triggering this situation works counter to the >goal of the IETF. Please specifically state "the goal". I believe that you will find that it is, in fact, not a goal that is widely-held in the IETF. >In a strict setting, it means implementers cannot use >verbatim text from RFCs, s/implementers/a subset of implementers who have a particular way of evaluating licenses/ > but needs to rewrite the text to avoid re-use >of material under the IETF Trust license. I believe that opens up for >interoperability problems (when a re-written comment is subtly different >from the original meaning, and the comment influences code). If people >decide that this rewriting needs to happen to avoid contamination from >the IETF Trust license, it would also delay getting IETF protocols >deployed. ...by those developers. >This has been my rationale for suggesting that IETF documents should be >licensed under a free software compatible license. They are already licensed that way, for one common understanding of "free software compatible license". You have a different understanding for your purposes. You are (repeatedly) asking us to change our license for your understanding. >I am aware that >battle is already lost, so I have mixed feelings about discussing this >further. ...so you launched dozens of people with much less understanding than you into sending one-way comments on the topic. In the future, please check your mix of feelings more carefully. >Generally, however, I think this question is very different from where >this thread started. It started, as far as I consider, with Stephan >suggesting that free software authors publish "free" (as in licensed >under a free software license) standards in the IETF. That is not >possible ...by your interpretation, but clearly is possible by other people's interpretation... >, and is unrelated to the question we discuss here. I'm happy >to discuss both questions, but I'm concerned that you and others may >believe that you dispute my first claim by discussing this separate >issue. > >> With the GPL text, you don't have the copyright, and you don't have a >> license that permits modified versions. But you do have the right to >> copy it. >> >> With the excerpt from an RFC, you don't have the copyright, and you >> don't have a license that permits modified versions. But you do have >> the right to copy it - you even have the right to copy pieces of it. >> >> Why are you insisting that the first is perfectly reasonable, and the >> second is a show-stopper? > >I'm not saying the second is a show stopper. The Internet appears to >work relatively well on most days. However, I insist that it is a >potential impediment and that it works counter to the goals of the IETF. Your recent actions make it sound like you feel that it is a better use of IETF time to do work to make a subset of developers who have one particular view of licensing happy than to develop the technology we are good at. I propose that the opposite is true. --Paul Hoffman, Director --VPN Consortium _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
