Re: [Asrg] not patents, was Email Postage (was Re: FeedBack loops

> So we all probably ought to worry more about desired common 
> functionality and less about infringement.
Indeed, unless the idea is taken from a specific company's 
implementation and they are not part of this discussion. 

The details of such a postage solution are very tricky to get right, and 
hope for wide adoption (cheap, easy, scalable and solves a real problem 
are key) should matter when it comes to email because it's already full 
of standards attempts to do similar things that don't work if not widely 
adopted (if the others aren't doing it, most likely you won't either), 
is already massively deployed, etc.
Of course, a parallel messaging world that works like email but uses 
different, but familiar, mechanisms from the ground up can also work, 
especially if it's superior in terms of authentication of sending 
parties, reliable messaging, ensures privacy, moving large payloads, 
allowing for greater semantics to express intent of the message, 
XML-based perhaps, allowing spammers to be identified and preferably 
booted, etc.  Then email can just be email and lose its luster over time 
as it is now because of spammers and phishers.  After all, email as it 
is is rather long in the tooth for a technology.  It could even bridge 
into email by allowing such messages to be delivered via email (via web 
sites?), though perhaps not allow email to be an originator back in.
Many companies (like my own) have come up with proprietary solutions 
that do many of these things, but a standard that has the support of 
open source providers, nice APIs, and can be incorporated by big ISPs 
and other software vendors could have a chance.  Of course, this is 
likely out of scope for this group and is a big undertaking to say the 
least.
David

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