On 24-Jul-25 22:16, Paul Hoffman wrote:
On Jul 24, 2025, at 09:47, Jean Mahoney <jmaho...@staff.rfc-editor.org> wrote:
The Trust Legal Provisions v5 [1] says the following about the placement of
copyright statements:
6. Text To Be Included in IETF Documents. The following text must be included
in each IETF Document as specified below. The IESG shall specify the manner and
location of such text for Internet-Drafts. The RFC Editor shall specify the
manner and location of such text for RFCs. The copyright notice specified in
6.b below shall be placed so as to give reasonable notice of the claim of
copyright.
Thanks, I stand corrected: the placement is not policy, only the existence is.
Thus, this WG doesn't need to consider this (although we might).
Fair enough. I have considered it personally:
1. New Policy
As you point out, it's an operational choice and at least for the IETF Stream
it's up to the IESG.
No one reads the legal shrink wrap.
But they should. Especially the bit that says "This is only a draft."
All we do by forcing it under their noses is annoy them and waste their time.
If it really annoys them, I have little sympathy; we all encounter boilerplate
of one kind or another many times a day. It's a feature of modern life. It only
takes one quick roll of the mouse wheel.
The IETF can better serve its audience by moving boilerplate in RFCs and
Internet-Drafts to the bottom of documents. This ensures that notices exist,
but are minimally annoying.
A compromise would be to put a very short version at the front and the full
notices at the end. Something like:
"This is a draft document. Legal and copyright notices are at the end."
"This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is published for
informational purposes. Legal and copyright notices are at the end."
"This is an Internet Standards Track document. Legal and copyright notices are at
the end."
etc.
I don't think we need to make such a change, however.
Brian
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