One document matched: draft-carpenter-whats-an-author-01.xml

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<rfc category="info" docName="draft-carpenter-whats-an-author-01" ipr="trust200902">
  <front>
    <title abbrev="What's an Author?">What is an Author of an IETF Stream Draft?</title>

    <author fullname="Brian Carpenter" initials="B. E." surname="Carpenter">
      <organization abbrev="Univ. of Auckland"/>

      <address>
        <postal>
          <street>Department of Computer Science</street>
          <street>University of Auckland</street>
          <street>PB 92019</street>
          <city>Auckland</city>
          <region/>
          <code>1142</code>
          <country>New Zealand</country>
        </postal>
        <email>brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com</email>
      </address>
    </author>


 

    <date day="30" month="May" year="2015"/>

    <abstract>
      <t>This draft suggests guidelines for assigning authorship in IETF stream
      Internet-Drafts.
      It also discusses the related issues of acknowledgements, editors and contributors.</t>
    </abstract>
  </front>

  <middle>
<section anchor="intro" title="Introduction and Scope">
<t>
The question sometimes comes up of who should be listed as the author(s)
of a draft, who should be listed as editors or contributors, and what acknowledgements
are appropriate. The guidelines below are aimed at Internet-Drafts in the IETF
publication stream <xref target="RFC5741"/>. Any inconsistency with
<xref target="RFC7221"/> is unintentional, and related issues are discussed
in <xref target="I-D.crocker-rfc2418bis-wgguidelines"/>.
The guidelines are intended to be compatible with the RFC Editor's style guide 
<xref target="RFC7322"/>, with the RFC Editor's authorship policies 
<eref target="http://www.rfc-editor.org/pipermail/rfc-interest/2015-May/008869.html"/>
and with the (draft) IESG statement on "surprised" authors
<eref target="http://trac.tools.ietf.org/group/iesg/trac/wiki/SurprisedAuthors"/>.</t>

<t>This draft has been written purely to aid discussion and is not expected to be published
as an RFC.</t>
</section>
<section title="Authors">
<t>Authors are people who have made a substantial creative contribution to the document.
Normally this means writing text or drawing diagrams. Occasionally, with the consent
of the other authors, it means making some other substantial creative contribution to
the document, for example by writing a software implementation as part of the design process.
It's a matter of judgement whether a person who simply makes a key intellectual contribution
should rank as an author.
</t><t>
People who did not make any such substantial contribution should not be listed
as authors. Funding support, managerial or supervisory status, and CV embellishment
don't count.
</t><t>In normal circumstances, people should not be listed as authors without
their explicit permission.
</t><t>
The practical impact is that the authors will be listed as such on the front page if
the document becomes an RFC, and in public bibliographies.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Contributors">
<t>Contributors are people who made smaller creative contributions to the document
than the authors, for example providing initial ideas that others have transformed
into publishable text, or drafting only a few paragraphs.
</t><t>
People who did not make any such contribution should not be listed as contributors.
People should not normally be listed as contributors without their explicit permission.
</t><t>
The dividing line between contributors and authors is a matter of judgement and cannot
be rigidly defined. However, the RFC Editor's policy is to query any document that has
more than five listed authors. Any list of more than five authors will need to be
negotiated if the document is approved for publication as an RFC.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Editors">
<t>
When a document has a large number of contributors and potential authors, it may
be appropriate to designate one or two people as both "Authors" and "Editors" and list the others
as contributors. The editors will indeed do the actual work of editing the document
on behalf of the community.
The practical impact of this is that the editors will be listed
as such on the front page if the document becomes an RFC, and in public bibliographies.
</t>
<t>In some cases, it may be appropriate to retain a list of authors of which one or two
are designated as editors. What matters is "truth in advertising": the people involved
should all feel happy that the designations of editors, authors and contributors are
fair and accurate.</t>
<t>It's worth noting that in some people's opinion, once a draft has been adopted by a WG,
all future changes are performed as an editing action on behalf of the WG. Traditionally,
the IETF has chosen to retain the word "Author" in most cases, with the formal designation
of editors being exceptional.</t>
</section>
<section title="List of Acknowledgements">
<t>
Acknowledgements should be given to people who have made significant creative
contributions smaller than those from the authors and contributors, or to people
who have made useful comments, provided critical reviews, or otherwise contributed
significantly to the development of the document. If ideas have been adopted from
other written sources, including IETF documents, clearly a reference is an ethical
requirement, but an acknowledgement might also be appropriate.</t>
<t>
Acknowledgements may also be given
to people or organizations that have given material support and assistance, but
this should not include the authors' regular employers.
</t><t>
An acknowledgement does not signify that the person acknowledged agrees with the
document. In general, people who do not wish to be listed as an author or a
contributor, but have in fact made a significant contribution, should be given
an acknowledgement.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Exceptions and Discussions">
<t>It goes without saying that normally nobody should be listed as an author, contributor or
editor against their will. Ideally, the parties involved will agree among themselves, or defer
to the judgement of the WG Chairs or Area Directors. Practice may vary between WGs.
However, we need flexibility to deal with unusual cases, such as these:
<list style="symbols">
<t>An acknowledgement is a statement of fact (the person contributed to the discussion),
and in some cases may be included even if the person acknowledged objects, for example
if they made a suggestion that might later be viewed as prior art.</t>
<t>An author or contributor may deserve to be listed, even if they cannot be contacted
when a document is updated after a long interval. It is quite common to list the original
authors of an RFC in a "bis" draft, even if they are long gone from IETF participation. </t>
<t>In particular, an author or contributor might be deceased.</t>
</list></t>
</section>
<section title="Intellectual Property Rights">
<t>
None of the above directly affects intellectual property rights. However, it's worth noting
that if a draft includes complete acknowledgements and references,
it will be much simpler to identify its status as possible prior art.
</t><t>
Copyright in IETF documents is governed by BCP 78 <xref target="RFC5378"/> and its predecessors,
the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions, and applicable national and international law.
</t><t>
The word "contributor" used in this draft might not mean the same thing as the word
"Contributor" used in BCP 79 <xref target="RFC3979"/>. That BCP should be consulted by
anyone concerned about the IETF requirement for disclosure of intellectual
property rights. </t>

</section>

    <section anchor="security" title="Security Considerations">
      <t>None, really. </t>
    </section>
    
    <section anchor="IANA" title="IANA Considerations">
      <t>This memo includes no request to IANA.</t>
    </section>

    <section anchor="ack" title="Acknowledgements">
 
      <t>Valuable comments were received from
      Loa Andersson,
      Andy Bierman,
      Carsten Bormann,
      Dave Crocker,
      Tom Petch,
      Yaron Sheffer,
      and
      Joe Touch.
      </t>

    </section>

    <section anchor="changes" title="Change log">
      <t>draft-carpenter-whats-an-author-01, 2015-05-30: incorporating community comments, citing
      RFC Editor and IESG statements. </t>
      <t>draft-carpenter-whats-an-author-00, 2015-04-24: original version. </t>
     
    </section>
  </middle>

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