In this message, I am speaking as an individual participant in the IETF.
For those following the discussion over the past few months, it must
be pretty obvious that I believe that the IETF's role in the world is
distinct from that of the Internet Society, and that I believe that
policy concerns are best addressed by ISOC. Because ISOC's role
in the standards process is at one remove, it can work to educate
legislatures and administrations without appearing to favor one participant
over the other. It could take a stand like "public policy is ill-served
by blanket grants of patents whose real validity must be determined
by courts". Working to establish that as a policy statement of ISOC could be
done by discussion in ISOC chapters, by discussion among the members of
ISOC (both organizational and individual), and by discussion with ISOC's board.
I have no doubt that if ISOC were to take on that particular public policy
view, it would draw on individuals who are familiar from IETF contexts to
bolster its case and provide its examples. But it would do so to make
statements
in an ISOC context, not in the IETF's.
As it stands now, governments use patents to grant monopolies. That is
a fact of life. The IETF's goal has long been to write specifications that
the community building and operating the Internet can use. If the terms of a
specific monopoly mean that the community absolutely cannot use a particular
specification, the IETF must find means to write a different
specification that the
community can use. Usually, this means changing the specification so
that the granted monopoly is not in effect. It may also decide that the
terms related to a specific monopoly do not affect the ability of the
community to
use the specification, either because the terms are so easy that they
imply no cost or because the need is so great that the cost will have
to accepted. To reach that decision, it may ask the holder of the monopoly
to give specific terms. In all of these cases, though, the decision
is made in
the context of the engineering choices in the specification, not as an abstract
decision which must be applied at all times and in all places. That
could change, if the IETF decided the effort to determine this on a
case by case basis was too great, but it has not done so to date.
You will notice that the choices above did not include "the IETF can fight
a specific monopoly grant". I don't think we as a corporate body can in
the common case, though individuals familiar from IETF contexts can and do.
There are several reasons for this, some practical (we don't have the money)
and some organizational (we don't have the right participant mix).
There is also the simple fact that the grant of a patent will have implications
beyond our standards, and so there are elements of the fight which
are literally not our business (note that asking for licensing terms may also
have implications beyond our standards, so there is a gray area here).
Most importantly, though, choosing to fight a patent will be understood
as the IETF judging its participants' external actions. In any
organization which
relies on volunteer participation, that has to be taken as a very serious,
very last step. Disallowing specific participants or acting against
their interests
based on their articles of faith or their current employer is a strike against
open participation in the IETF's work. That open participation is, in my
opinion, absolutely critical to the IETF's success.
There are many times in which the IETF process is frustrating for its
participants, because the effort to reach consensus can be extraordinarily
hard. That it works at all when participants may be from competing
companies or competing camps is a strong statement that its participants
recognize that building a common infrastructure is a common good.
There have been occasions when one set of participants believes another
set are not acting to achieve that common good. In my opinion,
the best way to handle those situations is by an even-handed application
of the normal rules. If done right, that trains all the participants how to
work together in the IETF context, retaining participants who might
otherwise simply go away. That may seem frustrating to those who can
imagine how much easier a particular decision would be if only one
or more participants would leave. But that is short-term thinking;
unlike the usual open source community, our focus on core infrastructure
means that we don't have the same options when we are thrown together
with those with whom we disagree. The Internet cannot fork.
We, for a very broad value of we, must work together as best we can.
Again, speaking only for myself,
regards,
Ted Hardie
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