Re: Bug#365194: [NONFREE-DOC] RFC1459, 2810-2813: IRC (Internet Relay Chat).
Kurt Roeckx <kurt@roeckx.be> writes:
> The RFC's published here all were made by individuals, and were
> not made by some IETF process.
>
> rfc1459 comes from a document that was always part of the irc
> source package.
Understood, but it seems that RFC 2810-2813 may have been improved by
the IETF process?
> Afaik, 2.8 versions don't have the doc/Comms file anymore
> since it was published as an rfc, but all previous version
> did. And the document clearly had an GPL license.
Is it exactly the same content? If so, I believe it is fine.
However, it should be clarified in copyright.
> Note that rfc1459 doesn't have any copyright notice or
> anything like that in it, unlike 2810-2813.
The copyright notice is optional, rfc1459 is published after 1988 in
the US, so it is protected by copyright laws.
> rfc2810-2813 is basicly 1459 split in a few RFCs, with
> some updates.
Ok.
> As part of the copyright statement it says:
>
> However, this
> document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
> the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
> Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
> developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
> copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
> followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
> English.
As the IETF IPR WG now have agreed, that copying conditions doesn't
apply to the text in the RFC, but rather the boiler plate and RFC
numbering scheme.
If the author agrees, they can re-license the text.
> The source to all the rfc's is also available at
> ftp://ftp.irc.org/irc/docs/draft*.nr, but those don't have
> any copyright statements either.
>
> Do I need to get the copyright holder of the documents to
> relicense it under the GPL? It seems clear to me that it
> already is covered by the GPL, but it shouldn't be a
> problem to get the copyright holder to explicitly state
> that.
Yes, I think clarifying this would be very useful. Having a statement
from all authors about releasing the text under a different license
(like the GPL) would be sufficient. It may be useful to ask whether
they incorporated any text from someone else too (maybe as a result
from IETF discussions), and ask them too.
> Is there something else I can do? Like including those
> draft*.nr files (in the next upstream release)?
The copyright on those would then have to be clarified anyway. So I
think it is better to ask the authors of the rfcs.
/Simon
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