Re: legal consultation (was List moderator action)

Simon Josefsson <[email protected]> Wed, 06 May 2026 22:40:09 +0200

Newsgroups	gmane.ietf.general
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Rob Sayre <[email protected]> writes:

> Hi, I wrote it up:
>
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-sayre-gendispatch-derivative/

Thanks for writing that.

I don't think it make sense to permit I-D's to prohibit derivative works
and at the same time forbid presentation or e-mail posts about the I-D
to use the same clause.  It seems hard to discuss or present a
no-derivative I-D in a presentation that can be derived by others and
re-used in other's Contributions.  The policy should be consistent
regardless of the form of contribution, which I believe it currently is.

Thus, let me propose something stronger: forbid the no-derivative rights
clause completely, for all Contributions.

I wonder what people think about that?

Has it been a net-win for the IETF to permit Contributions under the
no-derivative rights clause?  The approach was designed in a different
era, where (IIRC) external SDOs/people could gauge IETF-interest for
some piece of work without giving up rights.

I still think no-derivative rights contributions may be useful, so I'm
not sure it is possible to reach consensus to kill the concept.  Scott
Bradner has explained earlier some of the original rationale, and I
think that had a point.

/Simon

> I'm happy for anyone to take that off my hands and create a derivative work.
>
> In off-list discussion, it was clarified that Section 3 and Section 4 are
> non-normative.
>
> thanks,
> Rob

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