Hi Sam, all, ready to discuss licensing again? :-) here is an update from OGF28: first, we heard rumours that you may show up here - this would be great, not in the least so that we can discuss the licensing thingie F2F. Usually that is way more productive than endless mailing threads like this one, isn't it :) Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that we have been discussing the issues from the recent email exchanges (and I hope sincerely that these are the issues you are in fact concerned about) within the GFSG. So, there was some discussion to review the current IPR text, and to clarify those passages which seem, in your reading, to hide the fact/intent that using any amount of text from a GFD for documentation and any other purpose is legally perfectly fine: "...derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind..." We will be cross-checking with similar texts of other standards bodies, in particular including IETF, which seem to recently have updated their IPR texts as well, to remove some ambiguities. The OGF IPR was originally modeled after IETF's, and, IIRC, was basically reproducing the OGF IPR word by word. Further we have been discussing the point you raised that the state of OGF documents would be frozen in the case of OGF's disappearance. If this turns out to be a concern for the community, we will consider adding a clause which would release the documents into the public domain in the case of OGF's demise - we certainly don't want to hold anybody back in continuing to work with OGF documents in that case. Both of the above changes however need to be evaluated, and need to be approved by the OGF board. While we don't think this is a problem per se, this will need time to be changed. The OGF IPR is designed as it is to fulfil three goals: (a) support the production and consumption of standards, (b) ensure that OGF documents (i.e. documents released under OGF copyright) went through the OGF document process, and (c) secure OGF against legal litigations. The board will need to make sure that in particular (b) and (c) are not affected by the proposed changes. If this sounds overly bureaucratic to you: well, that is the way we work ;-) Please let us know if changes along those lines would make you sleep better :-D FWIW: for the same reasons as above (a-c), we do actually require that OGF documents are under full OGF copyright, and it does not seem likely that a proposal for dual licensing would find much support, if any. Looking forward to see you in Munich! Best, Andre. -- Nothing is ever easy.