[ntpwg] NTPStamp - A new addition to the kit...

[Todd Glassey]

Danny Mayer wrote:
>
> You seem to be determined to make yourself look foolish. The reference
> implementation is not owned by IETF and even the protocol is not owned
> by the IETF. Quoting directly from RFC2026 (BCP9) Section 10.3.1 Item 1:
>   
No Danny just point out how little you know about law.
>      "However, to the extent that the submission is or may
>       be subject to copyright, the contributor, the organization he
>       represents (if any) and the owners of any proprietary rights in
>       the contribution, grant an unlimited perpetual, non-exclusive,
>       royalty-free, world-wide right and license to the ISOC and the
>       IETF under any copyrights in the contribution.  
Uh Danny ask any of the commercial entities here or the University IP 
Acquisition houses whether they would rely on this assignment??? If you 
get a YES then let me ask - who is the company and are they profitable 
because no one in their right mind would accept IP under these terms.

Let me also ask how many really bad contracts sloppy technical people 
have put in place exist? - let me tell you the number is HUGE.
> This license
>       includes the right to copy, publish and distribute the
>       contribution in any way, and to prepare derivative works that are
>       based on or incorporate all or part of the contribution, the
>       license to such derivative works to be of the same scope as the
>       license of the original contribution."
>
> This does *NOT* say that IETF owns the copyright and in fact is says the
> opposite. 
Yes it does now but it didn't back when NTP was originally submitted... 
and that's the point.
> This is laid out in more detail and/or clarification in
> RFC3978 (BCP78) which basically says the same thing. None of the
> documents (including BCP79 - RFC3979) make any ownership claim by the
> IETF over either the protocol or the implementation. 
Sure they do - they make direct publication claims which impact patent 
filing by the rightful IP owners...
> The IETF only gets
> a perpetual license and copyright is retained by the submitter/author or
> organization claiming copyright.
>   
yeah this is one of the other misnomers - its not a perpetual its a 
"Shared Exclusive Right" to ... and that is the key issue here. 
Contracts which fabricate relationships which cannot exist in law are 
void so I suggest that you get the lawyers to really look over that 
contract and the IETF operations documents because its way too late to 
change anything now.
>  Yes
>   
>> the IETF has changed these rules through BCP78 and 79 and the later docs
>> but the earlier versions of the NTP package are totally tied to those
>> previous licenses. Something the IETF has not thought too much about but
>> those licenses cannot be changed ever because of how they were written.
>> So the code used to verify the IETF's Standard's Operation - something
>> that NTP *** MUST *** have to be a standard belongs to the IETF under
>> the earlier rules.
>>     
>
> No. See BCP 9. BCP 78 and BCP 79 both update BCP 9 and there is nothing
> to prevent IETF from updating or obsoleting these documents.
>   
Yes but BCP78/79 process is a revision to a contract which is 
unenforceable after being published on the earlier licensing agreements 
- check with any attorney you want who specializes in IP Licensing.... 
But it gets even funnier - when you read the HEADER of the filing 
itself. The HEADER says

Network 
Working                                                             S. 
Bradner, Ed.
Request for Comments: 3979                                            
Harvard University
BCP: 79 March 2005 Obsoletes: 3668
Updates: 2028, 2026 Category: Best Current Practice

So we read that this DOCUMENT UPDATES RFC2026 meaning that RFC2026 is 
still in effect. Also then it is two fold (1) up to the RELYING PARTY as 
to what they 'Understood" at the time they entered into this agreement.

But you may also want to look at sections 4a and 4.1 on that document 
since there is collateral legal impact of the language of those 
including that ANY WG WHO BLOCKS publication of anyone's submission 
would be in breach of their IETF Responsibilities as a List Operator...
> BCP 9 does not require *any* implementation to exist before becoming a
> Proposed Standard. 
I suggest you ask ISC lawyers about the derivative changes to the IETF's 
process agreements and what the evolution of them means.

 You seem to have the idea that what today's licensing documents say is 
the way it is - except that those previous filings under those previous 
rules makes NTP forever impossible to control - and YES if Dave wants me 
to point out how stupid and incompetent the legal counsel here has been 
because they DIDN'T READ the earlier IETF documents.

Your screwup here Danny is that the IETF "Contract for Performance of 
its Standards Process Practices" is split across a number of documents 
and has been for a while but the terms of the participation of the 
process is set at its original filing and since there is NOTHING in any 
BCP which specifies the IETF has the right to change those terms and 
conditions at any time, any effort originally filed under those terms is 
set for life. Sorry...

So Danny the problem is that the contract between the NTP.ORG entity or 
Dave Mills started back when the IETF published IP 'for any and all 
uses' meaning that code could be built from it. The original intent was 
to make it globally impossible to protect IP and if people would like to 
see photos of when that meeting took place I can arrange it. You will 
see some of the most influential faces in Internet History there and 
they all agreed at the time... And unless there is specific changes to 
that agreement between Dave Mills and the IETF and the IETF can formally 
notify all of the relying parties of those changes - the changes are 
most likely unenforceable in my opinion.

> See Section 4.1.1 of BCP 9. Since NTPv4 was submitted
> on the standards track, it would initially become a proposed standard.
Yes but the submission of the proposed standard took place when the 
original NTP filing was first done with the IETF years ago not when the 
IETF acted on it. The proposed NTP Standard Number has been hanging in 
limbo for a decade that I know of... meaning that that it is controlled 
by the standard process in place at the time it was submitted originally 
- the status of the documents inside the IETF is flawed such that ANYONE 
filing anything with them can demand that all filings take place under 
the terms and conditions in place at the time of the original filing 
because that process "document set" forms a full contract and set 
specific expectations. If you don't believe that check into legal 
precedents where the contracts evolve and change requirements on the fly 
and how enforceable they are without specific agreement by the 
SPONSORING PARTY under the US Copyrights Work for Hire Doctrine.


Todd Glassey


>  A
> Draft Standard wants at least two independent implementations of the
> protocol to move the protocol to draft standard status. See Section
> 4.1.2. Note that none of this requires that IETF owns either the
> protocol or the implementations and in fact IETF does not make such a
> claim. See above.
>   
Not now but the code to support the filing WAS NECESSARY and the instant 
that SOURCE CODE was filed to document the reference port it became the 
property of the IETF... poof all done - and not arguable either. Sorry - 
just because todays document's say the IETF may only own the publication 
rights they didn't used to and since all of the contributed engineering 
(the Vetting) done on NTP in the NTPWG and other places, this makes that 
code also the property of the IETF.

But hey... let me ask a totally unrelated question - I heard that the 
old ISC was nailed for an antitrust matter in something called the  MAPS 
Blacklisting Fiasco- is this true? 

I bring this up because of a Post Dean Anderson made on one of the other 
IETF Lists. Again - is this true or not?

Todd Glassey
> Danny
>
>   
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