Network Working Group S. Bradner, Ed.
Request for Comments: 5378 Harvard University
BCP: 78 J. Contreras, Ed.
Obsoletes: 3978, 4748 WilmerHale
Updates: 2026 November 2008
Category: Best Current Practice
Rights Contributors Provide to the IETF Trust
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the
Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2008 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document.
Abstract
The IETF policies about rights in Contributions to the IETF are
designed to ensure that such Contributions can be made available to
the IETF and Internet communities while permitting the authors to
retain as many rights as possible. This memo details the IETF
policies on rights in Contributions to the IETF. It also describes
the objectives that the policies are designed to meet. This memo
obsoletes RFCs 3978 and 4748 and, with BCP 79 and RFC 5377, replaces
Section 10 of RFC 2026.
Bradner & Contreras Best Current Practice [Page 1]RFC 5378 RFC 3978-incoming November 2008Table of Contents
1. Definitions .....................................................3
2. Introduction ....................................................5
2.1. No Retroactive Effect ......................................5
3. Exposition of Why These Procedures Are the Way They Are .........6
3.1. Rights Granted in Contributions ............................6
3.2. Rights to Use Contributions ................................6
3.3. Right to Produce Derivative Works ..........................6
3.4. Rights to Use Trademarks ...................................8
3.5. Contributions Not Subject to Copyright .....................8
3.6. Copyright in RFCs ..........................................9
4. Non-IETF Documents ..............................................9
5. Rights in Contributions .........................................9
5.1. General Policy .............................................9
5.2. Confidentiality Obligations ...............................10
5.3. Rights Granted by Contributors to the IETF Trust ..........10
5.4. Sublicenses by the IETF Trust .............................11
5.5. No Patent License .........................................11
5.6. Representations and Warranties ............................11
5.7. No Duty to Publish ........................................12
5.8. Trademarks ................................................12
5.9. Copyright in RFCs .........................................12
5.10. Contributors' Retention of Rights ........................12
6. Legends, Notices and Other Standardized Text in IETF
Documents ......................................................13
7. Security Considerations ........................................13
8. References .....................................................14
8.1. Normative References ......................................14
8.2. Informative References ....................................14
9. Acknowledgments ................................................15
10. Changes since RFC 3978 ........................................15
11. Declaration from the IAB ......................................16
Bradner & Contreras Best Current Practice [Page 2]RFC 5378 RFC 3978-incoming November 20081. Definitions
The following definitions are for terms used in the context of this
document. Other terms, including "IESG", "ISOC", "IAB", and "RFC
Editor" are defined in [RFC2028].
a. "Contribution": any submission to the IETF intended by the
Contributor for publication as all or part of an Internet-Draft or
RFC (except for RFC Editor Contributions described in Section 4
below) and any statement made within the context of an IETF
activity. Such statements include oral statements in IETF
datatracker.ietf.org