[rfc-i] Last Call on draft-braden-independent-submission-00.txt

[Bob Braden]

Friends,

RFC publication in the Independent Stream has been suspended for quite a 
long time, pending resolution of the copyright issues that are involved.

Really, the copyright issues for the Independent Stream were settled 
more than 2 years ago, in July 2007, by RFC 4846. Section 8 of that 
document defined the Stream's copyright rules in lawyerly language. What 
has been missing is the mechanism to enforce those rules, considering 
the role of the Trust and its incoming/outgoing rights model.

Now, it is very easy to get lost in many Twisty Little Passages on this 
topic, and we did repeatedly. At the last IETF meeting, there were 
numerous meetings and hallway discussions. Members of the RFC Editor 
staff and of the RFC Editorial Board participated in many of these 
discussions. The IAB Chair finally led us towards light, saying "it is 
really very simple..."

The bottom line is that we believe that nearly all the pieces are in 
place. The major missing pieces are actions/agreements that the Trust 
needs to make for outgoing rights on Independent Submissions.  A request 
must be made to the Trust, and this request must have community consensus.

Joel Halpern and I therefore put together 
draft-braden-independent-submission-00.txt for discussion.
According to recent precedent, it seems that a 30 day Last Call is 
required. Hopefully, consensus will be reached, and it can be published 
as an Informational RFC in the Independent Stream.  Please note that (we 
believe that) this document is completely consistent with Section 8 of 
RFC 4846.

The next issue is the venue for discussion of this draft. Since the 
"community" served by the Independent Submission stream is potentially a 
superset of the standards-setting body called the "IETF", the IETF list 
did not seem to be an appropriate venue. Rather, the rfc-interest list 
seems to be the most appropriate place for this Last Call discussion.

We are therefore declaring a 30 day Last Call on the draft named above.

The steps are: community discussion and consensus, publication as RFC, 
an announcement of agreement from the Trust, and the create of 
appropriate boilerplate by the Trust. THEN we can begin publishing in 
the Independent Submission stream again.  It would help if the Trust 
actions could be overlapped with (though ultimately contigent upon) the 
Last Call discussion.  Let's hope that a month from now it will be settled.

Bob Braden
for the RFC Editor
and the RFC Editorial Board