Re: Debian's Linux kernel continues to regress on freedom
Ron Johnson <ron.l.johnson@cox.net> writes:
> On 09/12/07 05:16, Josselin Mouette wrote:
>> Le mercredi 12 septembre 2007 à 05:04 -0500, Ron Johnson a écrit :
>>> Which license? I've looked a a few RFCs, and they each seem to have
>>> a different (sometimes non-existent) license. All, though, seem to
>>> say, "Distribution of this memo is unlimited."
>>> It would be useful to show John and I some specific examples of RFCs
>>> that don't allow any reformatting or translation derivations.
>> You've just found them. Without explicit permission, they are not
>> permitted.
> Really? Not in the RFCs I've read.
This was actually extensively discussed within the IETF and my
understanding of their interpretation of the license is closer to what
Josselin says, not what you're saying. You can excerpt RFCs into other
contexts, but you cannot modify the text or use it as the basis for some
other document without violating the license or reaching some other
arrangement with the IETF, and that includes translations.
>> You can draft derived versions, but you can't distribute them until
>> they are accepted as new RFCs.
> Says who? That just doesn't make sense. RFCs are almost never
> written by a single person.
The IETF reserves the right to work on derivative standards based on RFCs
to itself. You cannot do so outside the IETF without violating the RFC
license.
As with the Firefox naming situation, Debian gets a ton of bad press for
this because people seem to intuitively expect Debian to be doing
something strange without actually investigating. The more you
investigate, the more you discover that, actually, the license is just
screwed up and Debian is one of the few organizations that doesn't plug
its ears and ignore it.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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