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List:       ietf
Subject:    Re: [Trustees] ANNOUNCEMENT: The IETF Trustees inviteyour review
From:       Theodore Tso <tytso () mit ! edu>
Date:       2009-01-21 17:22:45
Message-ID: 20090121172245.GL31253 () mit ! edu
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On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 10:14:30AM -0600, Spencer Dawkins wrote:
>
> (3) I would strongly discourage spinning up a General-Area working group  
> without adopting the workaround - as an editor, even if I thought all  
> contributors had granted 5378-as-it-exists-today rights, I'm not sure why 
> I would make such a declaration. What if I was wrong?

I know what *I* would do, if I were editing a I-D document in this
post-5378 regime.  I'd put the darned thing under source control, and
in each changelog message I would include a reference to the message
ID and author names for each textual contribution that I didn't
personally author.  That would hopefully control the legal liability I
would suffer if someone tried to sue me claiming that I had somehow
included text which violated copyright in some way, since I would be
able to demonstrate provenance at least to who actual contributed the
text to the wg mailing list.  I still might end up having to sell my
house to defend the lawsuit, but at least I would hopefully not lose
my house as a result of making the promises required by RFC 5378 ---
at least I would hopefully be able to take down whoever had
misappropriated the text with me.  :-)

> In short - please do something quickly, because the current situation is  
> making things harder for people who want to get work done in the IETF, 
> and that should trump every other consideration, IMO.

Indeed; I was only partially serious when I suggested that the IETF
trust should indemnify or otherwise provide insurance to I-D authors.
RFC-5378 is requiring them to take on potentially fearsome liability
risks, even if we're not dealing with legacy RFC's from the pre-5378
era.

     	     	 		     	       	    - Ted
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