Subject: Clarification for Copyright to referred material in IETF draft

From: Samir Srivastava <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 00:57:21 -0800

Hi,

  If a link is referred within the draft being submitted to IETF has link to
other web-site as a reference for other work (such as wikipedia), does IETF
require the copyright for that referred stuff also.

Thx
Samir

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 10:08:30 -0500

On Dec 8, 2010, at 3:57 AM, Samir Srivastava wrote:

> Hi,
>  
>   If a link is referred within the draft being submitted to IETF has link to other web-site as a reference for other work (such as wikipedia), does IETF require the copyright for that referred stuff also.
>  

Dear Samir;

The IETF does not require copyright in any web-site reference. A link reference is no different in this regard than any other. 

This statement is based on our advice of counsel.

Regards
Marshall Eubanks 
Chair / IETF Trust

> Thx
> Samir
> _______________________________________________
> Ietf mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: "Dearlove, Christopher (UK)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 09:57:21 -0000

I would not consider that a link to Wikipedia is ever appropriate in an
IETF draft. If it were, then an exact date and time would need to be
included in the reference, but I'd be unhappy even with that. (This is
not for copyright reasons.)

-- 
Christopher Dearlove
Technology Leader, Communications Group
Communications and Networks Capability
BAE Systems Advanced Technology Centre
West Hanningfield Road, Great Baddow, Chelmsford, CM2 8HN, UK
Tel: +44 1245 242194  Fax: +44 1245 242124

BAE Systems (Operations) Limited
Registered Office: Warwick House, PO Box 87,
Farnborough Aerospace Centre, Farnborough, Hants, GU14 6YU, UK
Registered in England & Wales No: 1996687

________________________________

From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of
Samir Srivastava
Sent: 08 December 2010 08:57
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Clarification for Copyright to referred material in IETF draft

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      Keep this in mind if you answer this message.

Hi,
 
  If a link is referred within the draft being submitted to IETF has
link to other web-site as a reference for other work (such as
wikipedia), does IETF require the copyright for that referred stuff
also.
 
Thx
Samir

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---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 11:28:19 +0100

On 14.12.2010 10:57, Dearlove, Christopher (UK) wrote:
> ...

Out of curiosity, and because there may be drafts in the pipeline having 
links like that...: for which reasons?

(I see why we wouldn't want to cite anything *normatively* there, so you 
don't need to explain that part...)

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 11:39:03 +0100

Julian Reschke <[email-masked]> writes:

> Out of curiosity, and because there may be drafts in the pipeline
> having links like that...: for which reasons?
>
> (I see why we wouldn't want to cite anything *normatively* there, so
> you don't need to explain that part...)

There is a bunch of RFCs with references to Wikipedia:

jas@latte:~/rfc$ rgrep wikipedia rfc*.txt
rfc4824.txt:                en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore#Modern_semaphore>.
rfc4984.txt:                Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law,
rfc5290.txt:             "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality".
rfc5345.txt:   [1]  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pcap>
rfc5456.txt:   but [wikipedia] lists thirteen other publicly available
rfc5456.txt:   [wikipedia]  Wikipedia, "Inter-Asterisk eXchange",
rfc5456.txt:                <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAX>.
rfc5638.txt:         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Internet_Applications.
rfc5687.txt:                   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisco_Discovery_Protocol>.
rfc5975.txt:                   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness.
jas@latte:~/rfc$ 

All are informational RFCs, except for RFC 5975 which is Experimental
but the reference is informational only.

I don't see a problem with this.  If there are better references, that
is great and they should be preferred, but Wikipedia has useful
information and stable URLs, which makes it on par or better than other
external references.

/Simon

---

From: "Dearlove, Christopher (UK)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 10:41:31 -0000

Without a date and time, a link to Wikipedia is to something
that anyone could change, at any time, to anything. (Unless
locked, but that's unlikely to be the case here.)

With a date and time, a link to Wikipedia is at least to a
well-defined piece of text. And in technical areas it is often
good. But there is no quality control or attribution, and
accounts of Wikipedia problems are widespread. I would and
do read such articles, but if the fact is important enough to
need to be referenced, I'd check it, and reference the checked
source. The sources I see as informative references (other
drafts, RFCs, other standards or known bodies, textbooks,
journal papers) almost always have passed higher standard tests.

Finally, this is in line with accepted academic practice. I'm
not an academic, but the last academic advice on the subject
that I've seen (reported by a student to me) was "if you
reference Wikipedia, I will fail you". Can anyone point to any
peer-reviewed paper in a reputable source with a Wikipedia
reference?

-----Original Message-----
From: Julian Reschke [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: 14 December 2010 10:28
To: Dearlove, Christopher (UK)
Cc: Samir Srivastava; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Clarification for Copyright to referred material in IETF
draft

                    *** WARNING ***

Best regards, Julian

---

From: "Dearlove, Christopher (UK)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 10:45:33 -0000

> There is a bunch of RFCs with references to Wikipedia:

I can only disagree with the practice.

---

From: Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 11:53:33 +0100

> locked, but that's unlikely to be the case here.)

A link to any external site is to something that _someone_ could change,
at any time, to anything.  I don't see how replacing 'someone' with
'anyone' makes a significant difference here, rather to the contrary
since it means you or anyone inclined can improve it to restore its
usefulness.

External references always comes with the price of creating obsolete or
incorrect links.

/Simon

---

From: "Dearlove, Christopher (UK)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 11:00:14 -0000

My intended to be last comment.

Most links are to something someone - if a good source a known someone
- could change. A Wikipedia link is to something anyone can change.

-----Original Message-----
From: Simon Josefsson [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: 14 December 2010 10:54
To: Dearlove, Christopher (UK)
Cc: Julian Reschke; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Clarification for Copyright to referred material in IETF
draft

                    *** WARNING ***

/Simon

---

From: Martin Rex <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 12:53:36 +0100 (MET)

> - could change. A Wikipedia link is to something anyone can change.

I think Wikipedia Articles make very good _informational_ references,
and in particular because _anyone_ can change them!

Informative References in the form of URLs to information that is
under change control of individuals or companies is much more of
a problem, because if these entities decide to change or remove
that information, it is usually impossible for others to restore
any information under that specific URL.

Linking to other organization makes sense when it is about a
_specification_ owned by or under change control of that organization.
The problem with outdating URLs is still a problem, and Wikipedia
appears to be one of the few Sites that lives up to the original idea
behind URLs.  Even the IETF is occasionally moving around stuff needlessly
on their Web Server(s).

-Martin

---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 06:05:47 -0700

Martin Rex <mrex at sap dot com> wrote:

>> Most links are to something someone - if a good source a known
>> someone - could change. A Wikipedia link is to something anyone can
>> change.
>

This is the eternal debate over Wikipedia: it's good because good people 
can make it better, it's bad because bad people can make it worse.

--
Doug Ewell | Thornton, Colorado, USA | http://www.ewellic.org
RFC 5645, 4645, UTN #14 | ietf-languages @ is dot gd slash 2kf0s

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From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 14:42:42 +0100

On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 11:53:33AM +0100,
 Simon Josefsson <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 20 lines which said:

> External references always comes with the price of creating obsolete
> or incorrect links.

Some organisations, like the RFC Editor, provide stable references to
things that never change. Same thing with, for instance, the W3C. Most
organisations do not provide such stable references and I do not
understand why some people have a specific problem with Wikipedia
since the IETF does *not* have a policy to allow only references to
stable things (it would cut down severely the list of references at
the end of RFCs...)

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 11:56:52 -0800

Hi Julian,
>having links like that...: for which reasons?

This question would have been better suited for the RFC Editor (see 
RFC-interest mailing list) as it pertains to RFC style.

Quoting Doug Ewell [1]:

   "I thought it would be good to let the list know that these misconceptions
    exist and may be widespread, because of the wide use of Wikipedia"

And text from draft-narten-iana-rir-ipv6-considerations-00:

   'At various times in the past, it has been asserted that we will
    "never run out of IPv6 addresses". For example, Wikipedia repeats the
    myth'

If you are writing a draft about HTTP, for example, you will most 
likely do some research about the protocol.  The best way to do that 
is to type the word "HTTP" in the browser bar and it will be 
magically transformed into an reference to the specification.  The 
webpage which will appear has been peer reviewed by people with more 
expertise than the HTTPbis working group. :-)

It is left as an exercise to the reader of the drafts in the pipeline 
having links like that to determine whether the authors used the 
above methodology.

Regards,
-sm

1. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg06507.html