]> Mozilla

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Windy Hill Systems, LLC

US ekr@rtfm.com

Xiph.Org Foundation

US tterribe@xiph.org

General General Area Dispatch license monopoly The IETF Trust holds rights to RFCs. This document updates RFC 5377 to request that the IETF Trust change its licensing for IETF documents to permit the creation of derivative works. About This Document The latest revision of this draft can be found at . Status information for this document may be found at . Discussion of this document takes place on the General Area Dispatch Working Group mailing list (), which is archived at . Subscribe at . Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at .

Introduction The IETF produces RFCs to further its mission of improving the Internet. Intellectual property rights for these documents are held by the IETF Trust . Previous advice to the IETF Trust was that usage rights for IETF documents be limited to copying and translations. This can have the effect of granting the IETF monopoly rights over the maintenance of work that is published in IETF documents. This document revises the advice to the IETF Trust given in RFC 5377 to expand the rights granted in relation to IETF documents to include the ability to create derivative works. The IETF Trust, by way of its Trustees, has indicated that it will respect the wishes of the IETF in regard to the rights it will grant in relation to RFCs. It is therefore the IETF's responsibility to articulate those wishes.

Rationale The mission of the IETF is to make the Internet better. This is primarily achieved by producing documents, RFCs, that define interoperable Internet protocols. The IETF also publishes RFCs that further this mission in other ways, including Best Current Practice (BCP), Informational, and Experimental documents. Over time, the IETF has published documents on a very wide range of topics. The quality of IETF publications depends on the ability for the IETF to find a sufficient number of participants with expertise in the topic area. The IETF has an excellent reputation as a venue for the standardization of Internet protocols. The protocols and documents produced by the IETF are well respected. The IETF enjoys strong ongoing support and so appears to be a good choice of venue for standardization in the areas in which the community has strong expertise. Should the IETF be unable to attract adequate depth of expertise to produce a revision of existing work, another organization might have that expertise. In the most extreme case, the IETF could fail entirely or cease to be a viable venue for standardization, making it necessary to produce revisions in another venue. Licensing that permits the creation of derivative works could allow another organization to perform necessary maintenance or revisions. The licensing terms generated in response to RFC 5377 do not permit the creation of derivative works. This could unduly give the IETF an monopoly over the maintenance of protocols that are published as IETF documents. While contributors are able to provide a license for this purpose, that depends on securing permission from all contributors. The collaborative nature of IETF work makes it difficult to obtain this sort of license. In many cases it may not even be practical to determine all the contributors and contact them. The IETF Trust is in a position to make more permissive terms more readily available for all new documents. Similar considerations apply to other document streams: IAB, IRTF, or independent submissions ; however, see .

Permitting the Creation of Derivative Works This document advises the IETF Trust to amend the license for IETF Documents (RFCs and Internet-Drafts) to permit the creation of derivative works. This is in addition to the rights granted under the existing license .

Recognition of Status The IETF Trust is requested to ensure that any license permitting the creation of a derivative work stipulates that the original work be clearly identified. Derivatives also need to clearly attribute authors and contributors of the original.

Withholding of Naming Rights The IETF Trust is advised to make the license to create derivative works conditional on the use of a distinct protocol name when creating new versions of existing protocols. This need not apply to reused or copied protocol elements or fields; it only applies to the protocol, extension, or component that is being revised. The IETF Trust should maintain the ability to permit the reuse of a name in appropriate cases, such as when the IETF agrees to transfer development of a protocol to a different organization or where the IETF has decided not to take up a given piece of work and the proponents bring it elsewhere. The potential for confusion about the status of a derivative work is not completely avoidable. However, the requirement to use a new name for protocols or mechanisms ensures that names are not used to compound any potential confusion.

Other Streams The IETF Trust is also responsible for licensing terms on documents that are produced in relation to the activity of other RFC streams (IRTF, IAB, and independent). The IETF cannot advise the IETF Trust as it relates to licenses on RFCs published in these other streams. Ideally, other streams would adopt the amended license terms, as they have done for the existing license . That would ensure consistency across the RFC series and for work contributed to other streams. However, this document cannot serve as advice from other streams; it can only capture IETF consensus.

Older RFCs As noted in , IETF documents published prior to the effective date of that license are subject to other licensing provisions. The IETF Trust is not requested to attempt to secure the ability to alter the license terms for these documents.

Security Considerations This document is purely procedural in nature and therefore raises no new concerns that might affect the security of Internet users. However, ensuring that proper protocol maintenance can be conducted by qualified and motivated experts could improve security.

IANA Considerations This document has no IANA actions.

References Normative References IETF Trust This memo gives a mission statement for the IETF, tries to define the terms used in the statement sufficiently to make the mission statement understandable and useful, argues why the IETF needs a mission statement, and tries to capture some of the debate that led to this point. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. Contributors grant intellectual property rights to the IETF. The IETF Trust holds and manages those rights on behalf of the IETF. The Trustees of the IETF Trust are responsible for that management. This management includes granting the licenses to copy, implement, and otherwise use IETF Contributions, among them Internet-Drafts and RFCs. The Trustees of the IETF Trust accepts direction from the IETF regarding the rights to be granted. This document describes the desires of the IETF regarding outbound rights to be granted in IETF Contributions. This memo provides information for the Internet community. Informative References The IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA) was originally established in 2005. In the years since then, the needs of the IETF evolved in ways that required changes to its administrative structure. The purpose of this RFC is to document and describe the IETF Administrative Support Activity, version 2.0 (IASA 2.0). It defines the roles and responsibilities of the IETF Administration LLC Board (IETF LLC Board), the IETF Executive Director, and the Internet Society in the fiscal and administrative support of the IETF standards process. It also defines the membership and selection rules for the IETF LLC Board. This document obsoletes RFC 4071, RFC 4333, and RFC 7691. This memo updates the process for selection of Trustees for the IETF Trust. Previously, the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) members also acted as Trustees, but the IAOC has been eliminated as part of an update to the structure of the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA). This memo specifies that the Trustees shall be selected separately. This memo obsoletes RFC 4371. The changes relate only to the selection of Trustees. All other aspects of the IETF Trust remain as they are today. In 2018, the IETF began the transition to a new administrative structure and updated its IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA) to a new "IASA 2.0" structure. In addition to more substantive changes that are described in other documents, the transition to the 2018 IETF Administrative Support structure changes several position titles and organizational relationships that are referenced elsewhere. Rather than reissue those referencing documents individually, this specification provides updates to them and deprecates some now-obsolete documents to ensure that there is no confusion due to these changes. Internet Architecture Board This document describes the framework for an RFC Series and an RFC Editor function that incorporate the principles of organized community involvement and accountability that has become necessary as the Internet technical community has grown, thereby enabling the RFC Series to continue to fulfill its mandate. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

Acknowledgments TODO acknowledge.