[ih] Who owns old RFCs ?

[Vint Cerf]

Telenet developed X.25 standards in CCITT with Canada, UK and France - no
IMP code involved.

v


On Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 2:02 PM the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via
Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> alex (and/or anyone else), some curiosities vis-a-vis the publicly
> available IMP code:
>
> any idea's how many eventual takers there were of the publicly available
> IMP code?
>
> did the publicly available IMP code also include the PDP-1 and/or Tenex
> network management tools?
>
> are you aware of any products (or networks) that resulted from the publicly
> available IMP code?
>
> would specifically be curious to know if the Larry Roberts commercial
> Telenet (X.25) efforts benefited/used the publicly available IMP code?
>
> geoff
>
> On Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 4:14 AM Alex McKenzie via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> >  I am not a lawyer and I never read the early BBN contracts from ARPA.
> > However, I was told by BBN management that documents produced by BBN
> > employees under the ARPA contracts were in the public domain.  This
> > included network maps, RFCs, conference papers, and so on.  As I recall
> we
> > had to explicitly assert to the publishers of conference proceedings that
> > papers we submitted could not be copyrighted.  Surely this also applies
> to
> > any RFCs written by BBN employees.
> > As a side note, BBN did not want to make the IMP code publicly available.
> > The fear in the early days was that graduate students with access to IMPs
> > might decide to tinker with the code.  A bit later, when some BBN
> employees
> > started a company called Packet Communications Inc (PCI) to go into the
> > public packet switching business they wanted to take the IMP code with
> > them, and BBN (which was thinking about entering the public packet
> > switching business itself) did not want to make it easy for PCI and
> > refused.  PCI appealed to ARPA to declare that the code was in the public
> > domain, and after a short struggle BBN consented to make the code
> available
> > to PCI and anyone else who wanted it. [BBN provided the code on mag tape,
> > and charged a $100 shipping and handling fee which was accepted as
> > reasonable.]
> > So I think ISOC can state that any RFCs produced by BBN before 1 April
> > 1994 are in the public domain.
> > Cheers,Alex McKenzie
> >
> >     On Tuesday, April 21, 2020, 10:04:52 PM EDT, John Levine via
> > Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> >  The IETF Trust, of which I am a current trustee, is finally getting
> > around to updating its dusty old web site.
> >
> > I have to job of figuring out what we can say about rights in very old
> > RFCs, which I realize is a longstanding can of worms.  Here's what I
> > think I have figured out, corrections welcome.
> >
> > RFC 1602 said that all contributions after 1 April 1994 granted a
> > copyright license to ISOC.  In October 1996, RFC 2026 made the grant
> > of rights much clearer, and also specified a copyright notice to put
> > on standards track RFCs, although first RFC with the notice wasn't
> > until 2156 in 1998.
> >
> > In December 2005 the trust was set up, and the Article V of the trust
> > agreement says that the grantors CNRI and ISOC contribute IPR to the
> > trust.  Schedule A lists the IPR including:
> >
> >   All of its rights in, and copies of, each of the following
> >   materials that is currently used (as of the Effective Date) in the
> >   administrative, financial and/or other operation of the IETF: ...
> >
> >   current Internet Drafts and Request for Comments.
> >
> > I don't know what "current" means here but since I am an optimist I
> > hope it means the rights they may have to all RFCs published up to
> > that point rather than ones that were standards at the time.
> >
> > We have a Confirmatory Assignment of trademarks and service marks,
> > nothing more for copyright licenses.
> >
> > The trust agreement sec 5.2 encourages other parties to contribute
> > rights relevant to the IETF, which I assume means copyrights in older
> > RFCs or I-D's or licenses to them.  I have found no documentation that
> > anyone ever did, but it's possible there's something lurking in an old
> > archive.
> >
> > There are a few early RFCs with specific copyright notices from MIT, U
> > of Michigan and Dan Bernstein, and there's RFC 20 which is a photocopy
> > of most of ANSI X3.4-1968 with nothing suggesting that ANSI's
> > predecessor granted a license.
> >
> > I conclude that we have rights to RFCs published since 1 April 1994
> > which would be 1605, 1606, 1607 (dated 1 April 1994) and everything
> > since 1610, which was dated May 1994.  Earlier than that, find the
> > authors if you can.
> >
> > Anything I've missed here?
> >
> > R's,
> > John
> >
> > --
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> >
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> >
> >
>
> --
> Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com
> living as The Truth is True
> http://geoff.livejournal.com
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