IETF legal boilerplate (was: Uncommented diff: define expected <path-identity>)

[Russ Allbery <rra@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Harald Alvestrand <harald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> Looks fine to me; I think the same is said or implied elsewhere
> (including in USEFOR), but repetition isn't very harmful, and might be
> helpful.

Thanks, it's in -13.

BTW, there's some current dust-up about the legal boilerplate in RFCs and
some debate over whether it implies that the I-D author has to verify the
legal status of all submissions to the I-D.  To be perfectly clear in a
public forum, I have *not* done this.  I posted -13 on the basis of the
following sentence in RFC 5378:

   This memo does not retroactively obtain additional rights from
   Contributions that predate the date that the IETF Trust announces the
   adoption of these procedures.

and therefore made no attempt to check the rights status of any
submissions that went into this draft prior to when I became aware of
these rules (which was a couple of days ago).

RFC 5378 is a long, ugly legal document that I have no particular desire
to read, understand, or analyze.  I'm hoping that the IETF will clearly
resolve the current question, which appears to revolve around this text:

   To the extent that a Contribution or any portion thereof is protected
   by copyright or other rights of authorship, the Contributor and each
   named co-Contributor grant a perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive,
   royalty-free, world-wide, sublicensable right and license to the IETF
   Trust under all such copyrights and other rights in the Contribution:

   a. to copy, publish, display, and distribute the Contribution, in
      whole or in part,

   b. to prepare translations of the Contribution into languages other
      than English, in whole or in part, and to copy, publish, display,
      and distribute such translations or portions thereof,

   c. to modify or prepare derivative works (in addition to
      translations) that are based on or incorporate all or part of the
      Contribution, and to copy, publish, display, and distribute such
      derivative works, or portions thereof unless explicitly disallowed
      in the notices contained in a Contribution (in the form specified
      by the Legend Instructions), and

   d. to reproduce any trademarks, service marks, or trade names which
      are included in the Contribution solely in connection with the
      reproduction, distribution, or publication of the Contribution and
      derivative works thereof as permitted by this Section 5.3,
      provided that when reproducing Contributions, trademark and
      service mark identifiers used in the Contribution, including TM
      and (R), will be preserved.

and:

   Subject to each Contributor's (or its sponsor's) ownership of its
   underlying Contributions as described in Section 5.6 (which ownership
   is qualified by the irrevocable licenses granted under Section 5.3),
   each Contributor hereby acknowledges that the copyright in any RFC in
   which such Contribution is included, other than an RFC that is an RFC
   Editor Contribution, shall be owned by the IETF Trust.  Such
   Contributor shall be deemed to assign to the IETF Trust such
   Contributor's copyright interest in the collective work constituting
   such RFC upon the submission of such RFC for publication, and
   acknowledges that a copyright notice acknowledging the IETF Trust's
   ownership of the copyright in such RFC will be included in the
   published RFC.

I have no problem granting the IETF Trust such a license and copyright
assignment for the collective copyright for all of my contributions to
this I-D.  However, I want to make very explicitly clear that I can speak
only for my own contributions, I have not verified the contributions of
anyone else involved in this draft (named or otherwise), and have no
intention of doing so.

If it becomes the job of the I-D Author to verify such legal details
regarding the draft, I will be resigning as document author for this
working group, as I have neither the time nor the inclination to be a
legal bookkeeper.

Furthermore, please note that while I have no difficulty doing this, I
have not signed any legal document transferring copyright, and as a matter
of law, I do not believe that the IETF is legally permitted to transfer
copyright in a manner such as that described above without such a legal
document.  So as a matter of law, I believe section 5.9 is, in fact, void.
I am, however, not a lawyer and am not taking action on that basis.

Other contributors can and should speak for themselves regarding the
implications of the above (and the rest of RFC 5378) for their work.  I
very explicitly refuse to make any representations on behalf of anyone
else, and if it is made clear to me that by submitting an I-D I am doing
so, I will immediately cease to submit any further I-Ds to the IETF until
such time as that changes.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@xxxxxxxxxxxx)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>