Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
The fear is that a casual patent be turned into a fundamental one
by virtue of it being made into a standard. The RAMBUS concern is
a real one.
This is something that I believe should be decided at the level
of the community as a whole rather than one working group and
further should allow for license terms to be accepted on a
general basis so that we do not have this issue in every case.
I agree with Phil that this is something should be raised on a community
level for the entire IETF since it is bound to come up again. But that
might be something more suitable for another forum. The question is what
are we supposed to do in regards to Sender-ID? Approving it on the WG
level might be considered "final approval" and alienate sizable portions
of the community. Not approving it, will push Microsoft and others away.
I don't know if either side will bother taking into account the finer
distinctions of the IETF approval process. Kind of a catch-22?
Perhaps guidance from the IESG might be helpful here.
We might be able to get further if we knew the reason for Microsoft's
insistence on explicit execution of a contract. They appear to me
to have a concern about notice of the contract terms and believe
that constructive notice may not be effective in achieving
reciprocity.
They are reading the list.
Yakov