Re: Non-free files in source packages?
Andrew Suffield <asuffield@debian.org> writes:
> On Thu, Jan 06, 2005 at 12:11:20AM +0100, Simon Josefsson wrote:
>> Have Debian evaluated the new RFC copying conditions? Quoting
>> <ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc3667.txt> section 3.3:
>>
>> a. To the extent that a Contribution or any portion thereof is
>> protected by copyright and other rights of authorship, the
>> Contributor, and each named co-Contributor, and the organization
>> he or she represents or is sponsored by (if any) grant a
>> perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, world-wide
>> right and license to the ISOC and the IETF under all intellectual
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> A license that is not even granted to us, let alone the rest of the
> world, is of no use to us. If this is really the only license provided
> then we can't even redistribute the things - only the ISOC and IETF
> can do that. It appears that rfc 3667 does not refer to us at all (see
> section 7.5).
>
> Somebody should check whether older rfcs have a similar problem. Did
> anybody actually grant a license to *us* to distribute them at all?
I agree with you.
I have been trying to illuminate the IETF about that part of the
license, with little success.
As far as I can tell, members of the IETF IPR working group doesn't
understand what RFC 3667 is saying, as illustrated by the RFC editor's
summary of RFC 3667 in [1], that paint a completely different picture,
or they just don't care.
I'm told the FSF lawyers are looking at this, and the preliminary
message I got, was that they agree with our interpretation.
I believe it would be useful for the Debian community to let the IETF
know about Debian's position on this. Preparing a statement and
posting it to the IETF IPR working group seem appropriate, and would
be appreciated.
Thanks,
Simon
[1] http://www.rfc-editor.org/copyright.html
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