On 2007-10-23 16:20, Henning Schulzrinne wrote:
I'm confused by this part of the discussion. How can a standard be
encumbered by GPL? As far as I know, GPL does not prevent anyone from
implementing a standard without any restrictions or fees, just possibly
from using somebody else's code under certain conditions.
There's certainly a tricky point if code embedded in a standard
is explicitly subject to the GPL; that makes it effectively impossible
for a commercial implementor to use even fragments of that code
in a proprietary way.
I don't think
that anybody is proposing that all implementations should be "free", in
whatever sense of the word, just that free implementations can exist.
Thus, I consider this somewhat of a diversion.
Well, there's an inverse claim that some of the IETF's current rules
make it impossible to use material extracted from RFCs in open source
under certain OS licenses. But I agree that these copyright issues are
distinct from patent issues. The latter concern whether an implementor
can put code under a given OS license at all, depending on the exact
form of patent licence available. Not all OS licenses have this
problem, however.
Brian
Henning
On Oct 22, 2007, at 10:45 PM, Scott Kitterman wrote:
On Monday 22 October 2007 16:27, John C Klensin wrote:
I also note that we can easily get onto a slippery slope here.
Many companies view the GPL to be an encumbrance no less severe
than the patent policies of other companies. Perhaps it is even
more severe because encumbrances associated with patents that
can be made to go away by the payment of money are less
complicated to deal with (if one is willing to spent the money)
than encumbrances under the GPS, which just don't go away.
Would you recommend that IETF not permit any materials that
might be encumbered under the GPL, etc.?
That sounds reasonable to me. To promote global interoperability,
standards
need to be implementable throughout the internet ecosystem, both Free and
Proprietary.
Scott K
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