[Fedora-legal-list] Distribution of IETF MIB files

[Jan Safranek]

On 02/11/2013 01:10 PM, mejiko wrote:
> 2013-02-11 (Monday) 10:52 +0100 Jan Safranek wrote:
> 
>> Now, can Fedora ship these files? IMHO yes, reading RFC 5377, chap. 4.3,
>> it's IETF's intention to allow such extraction, modification and
>> distribution. But I am not a lawyer.
>>
>> The MIB files are considered Code Components as defined at
>> http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info/ and its license is (probably)
>> defined at http://trustee.ietf.org/docs/IETF-Trust-License-Policy.pdf
> 
> I viewed this license page. 
> 
> MIBs code licensed under BSD (3 cause) License.
> Its free (BSD license is "Good" license, See Reference). 
> Its no license problem. 
> 
> but RFC document license is freely redistributable, but do not allow
> modify. RFC document is not code, Its document (not content).

In section 4.1 are MIB files inside RFCs defined as "code components".
And in 4.2, BSD is applied to these code components, i.e. MIB files in
the RFC texts as BSD licensed. Therefore we may distribute these code
components, i.e. MIB files, as separate files and even modify them if we
want (and we do, because there are typos in the MIB files).

IMHO while the RFC document is non-free (cannot be modified), the MIB
files inside are free (and can be modified and distributed separately).

Jan