On Wed, Aug 25, 2004 at 03:04:08PM -0700, Ted Hardie wrote:
An important part of the IETF process is that we treat all of its
participants
as behaving in good faith. If the license terms offered cause difficulties
for you, please state how the terms impact your development and deployment.
(Eric's description of the sublicensing issue for Sendmail is a good example
here, and I encourage you to read it as a potential model).
Stating that the _holder_ of the IPR is the problem, rather than the _terms_
of the license, is very different. That is contrary to the principle that
we
treat all participants as behaving in good faith. Please focus on the
terms,
not the holder.
The lack of information about the technology covered by the patent(s) is
one of my primary concerns. E.g., if I choose to implement SPFv1
checks in my code and DO sign the license as required for Sender-ID,
versus NOT signing the license and foregoing Sender-ID, how infringing
is SPFv1?
The lack of transferrability and sublicensability are also concerns.
I can't in good conscience say, "go ahead with this" because I don't
know what I'm agreeing to vis a vis the patent claims, as they're
undisclosed, and no clarification as to the specific claims has been
forthcoming.
I can't in good conscience say, "go ahead with this" because it
restricts the licensing and distribution of code I may choose to write.
Several people have brought up RFC2338 as an example of precedence for
this type of IPR claim. The other side of that coin is the HSRP/VRRP
battle, and the necessity of introducing CARP because of that IPR
confusion. At best, it's produced several rounds of legal posturing and
three similar, competing protocols. At worst, it's fractured the
solution space, limited deployment, and caused an overall chilling
effect.
Those aren't good outcomes when we're discussing a technology whose
success depends in part on widespread adoption and deployment.
--
Mark C. Langston GOSSiP Project Sr. Unix SysAdmin
mark(_at_)bitshift(_dot_)org http://sufficiently-advanced.net
mark(_at_)seti(_dot_)org
Systems & Network Admin Distributed SETI Institute
http://bitshift.org E-mail Reputation http://www.seti.org