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Re: Oppose draft-carpenter-ipr-patent-frswds-00

2007-10-30 02:45:43
"James M. Polk" <jmpolk(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com> writes:

At 04:48 PM 10/29/2007, Simon Josefsson wrote:
"Eric Burger" <eburger(_at_)bea(_dot_)com> writes:

One interesting side effect of the existence of an open source
implementation of a protocol is monoculture.  We ran into a problem in
ifax year ago when it turned out that all eight "independent"
implementations all relied on the same library, thus rendering the
"independent" implementations label difficult, to say the least.  Why
were there no independent implementations?  Because in this case, the
open source implementation was pretty good, and it was not worth
investing in a proprietary implementation.  The result here has a really
bad side effect for the IETF: if there is a good open source, free
implementation, there will be no second implementation, resulting in it
being impossible for the standard to progress.

But that is how it is supposed to work!  If there is only one
implementation, a standard is not mature enough to move to DS.  You need
to have at least two, preferably several more, completely independent
implementations in order to quality-test a standard.

but why does one or both have to be open source?

Why can't both be commercial?

DS designates a mature standard.  If you read the requirements in RFC
2026 for a mature standard it is clear that few of the modern IETF
protocols live up to that standard -- you need to demonstrate
interoperability between two completely independent implementations of
_all_ features in the protocol standard.  Another (existing) requirement
is that any patent licenses needs to be obtained through separate
processes.  I believe that a good way to demonstrate that the patent
license process works is to require that a free software implementation
exists.  I strongly believe it should be possible to participate on the
Internet without paying a software patent tax to some organizations.

So few PSs become DSs, I believe this will almost certainly make
progression from PS to DS slower. Is that what we want?

I believe it will lead to better quality DS standards.  The reason few
PSs become DSs is, in my experience, not because a lack of free
implementations, but rather that nobody cares enough to go through the
pain of interop testing.

The requirements for DS are pretty high already, which can be discussed
as a separate issue, but this draft is only a marginal change.  My
impression is that your problem really is that few documents move to DS,
not that a free implementation should be required.

I admit now all PSs have IPR attached, but this is almost certainly
intended to kill any IPR from achieving DS. Is that what is intended
here?

I don't believe that was the intention, but that's a question for Brian.

I disagree that all PSs are patented (if that is what you meant).  I've
implemented several such standards without worrying about patents.  I
believe the majority of PSs are actually published without known
patents.  A search in the IETF IPR tracker should answer that.

/Simon

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