As far as I can see, this absolutely decides the issue. For RC2 to be
considered, RSA must agree that it is not confidential. Can there be any
other interpretation?
Yes. The specification can come from somewhere other than RSA.
RSA can complain "but that's *our* protocol", and IETF will duly
record that complaint, but that by itself won't stop IETF from
considering whether to use it.
To me the more interesting question is: assuming a working group
received assurance from IESG that it would be allowed to publish
an S/MIME spec that referenced someone else's RC2 specification,
would it be able to reach consensus that this was the Right Thing to do?
Keith