IESG Statement on Clarifying Derivative Works Rights

RFC 5378 is clear that derivative rights for a Contribution can only be withheld when the Contribution is an IETF Document, and only then in narrow circumstances. In all other circumstances, notices that claim that derivative rights are being withheld for a Contribution are not conformant to IETF policies.

Any notices in conflict with IETF policies shall be ignored in a Contribution. Any process owner required to handle a Contribution with such a notice can require the notice be removed. Repeated inclusion of such notices may be considered a disruption and moderated per RFC 2418/RFC 3934 and the IESG Statement on Disruptive Posting.

Definitional Background

Contribution

Section 1 of RFC 5378 says:

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
      sessions as well as written and electronic communications, made at
      any time or place, that are addressed to:

      o the IETF plenary session,
      o any IETF working group or portion thereof,
      o any Birds of a Feather (BOF) session,
      o the IESG, or any member thereof on behalf of the IESG,
      o the IAB, or any member thereof on behalf of the IAB,
      o any IETF mailing list, including the IETF list itself, any
        working group or design team list, or any other list functioning
        under IETF auspices,"

Therefore, any communication as part of the conflict resolution and appeal processes per Section 6.5 of RFC 2026 involves engagement of a WG Chair or the IESG. Any engagement of the WG, IESG members or IAB members is also an IETF Contribution.

IETF Documents

To reiterate, Section 1 of RFC 5378 says:

   f. "IETF Documents": RFCs and Internet-Drafts that are used in the
      IETF Standards Process as defined in 1(g).  This is identical to
      the "IETF stream" defined in [RFC4844].

   g. "IETF Standards Process": the activities undertaken by the IETF in
      any of the settings described in 1(a) above.

Explanation

Section 3.3 of RFC 5378 notes that

the IETF needs to be able to evolve IETF Documents in response to experience gained in the deployment of the technologies described in such IETF Documents, to incorporate developments in research, and to react to changing conditions on the Internet and other IP networks. … In order to do this, the IETF must be able to produce derivatives of its documents; thus, the IETF must obtain the right from Contributors to produce derivative works.

Hence, Contributors generally grant a license that includes the right to create derivative works. Three narrow exceptions to granting this right are defined Section 3.3 of RFC 5378:

• “documents describing proprietary technologies”,
• “documents that are republications of the work of other standards organizations”,
• when a “Contributor may not want to grant publication rights or the right to produce derivative works before finding out if a Contribution has been accepted for development in the IETF Standards Process.”

Section 5.3(c) of RFC 5378 describes how the derivative work license can be withheld through the use of conforming Legend Instructions in the context of the narrow exemptions of Section 3.3. This section does not permit the application of Legend Instructions to any other kind of IETF Contribution.