In <46385749-041C-11D9-B751-000A95B3BA44(_at_)hxr(_dot_)us> Andrew Newton
<andy(_at_)hxr(_dot_)us> writes:
3) On the issue of ignoring patent claims, the working group has at
least rough consensus that the patent claims should not be ignored.
Additionally, there is at least rough consensus that the participants
of the working group cannot accurately describe the specific claims of
the patent application. This stems from the fact that the patent
application is not publicly available.
Agreed.
Given this, it is the opinion
of the co-chairs that MARID should not undertake work on alternate
algorithms reasonably thought to be covered by the patent application.
Uh, can you give an example of an alternative algorithm to the PRA
that has been discussed that might be "reasonably thought to be
covered by the PRA patent"? I can't think of any.
As per RFC3668, which all participants of this mailing list are
supposed to comply with, if we start creating an alternative that does
happen to be covered by any IPR of any other participant, we will
learn about such encumbrance.
See:
http://www.ietf.org/NOTEWELL.html
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3668.txt
So, while I agree that we shouldn't try to create a standard that we
know is encumbered, isn't this pretty much what we have been trying to
do already?
With regard to items 3 and 4 above, it is also the opinion of the
co-chairs that any attempt by the MARID working group to define any
new scopes other than "mailfrom" and "pra" for the SPF syntax will at
this time result in failure to find consensus within the working group.
It is the opinion of this participant that the pra scope will not
reach consensus due in large part to the patent mess, whether there is
a mailfrom scope or not.
It is the opinion of this participant that the mailfrom scope will not
reach consensus. unless it also allows for the helo scope to be
checked and thus be compatible with SPF-classic. SPF-classic is the
current defacto standard and I think standardizing existing practice
is the easiest way to reach a consensus.
This work plan does not
include scopes outside of "mail from" and "pra", and it is our opinion
that no new work items of this type should be considered until MARID
has successfully produced a first specification.
Given this work plan, I do not expect this working group to ever
produce a first specification. *very heavy sigh*
-wayne