If someone participates under a pseudonym with the objective of inserting
patented technology and anyone finds out they are in big trouble. Much worse
than any prior case.
The much bigger problem is people who read an rfc and write out a patent
application over it. It has happened and people have been forced to buy them.
Sent from my GoodLink Wireless Handheld (www.good.com)
-----Original Message-----
From: Russ Housley [mailto:housley(_at_)vigilsec(_dot_)com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 12:09 PM Pacific Standard Time
To: Simon Josefsson
Cc: ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: Re: Possible RFC 3683 PR-action
Simon:
Since IETF does not vote, it is certainly not an issue here?
This is not totally true. A WG Chair or Area Director cannot
judge rough consensus if they are unsure if the portion of the
population that is representing a dissenting view is one person
or many different people. This is especially true when there
are a large number of silent observers.
Frankly, it strikes me as somewhat odd that a body acting as a
standards-setting organization with public impact might allow any
technical decision on its specifications to be driven by people
operating under a cloak of anonymity. Expressing an anonymous voice?
No problem. Influencing determination of a consensus with public
impact? That should not be allowed, IMO.
What if the pseudonymous voice raise a valid technical concern, provide
useful text for a specification, or even co-author a specification?
I think decisions should be based on technically sound arguments.
Whether someone wants to reveal their real identity is not necessarily
correlated to the same person providing useful contributions.
Raising a technical problem anonymously does not seem to be a
concern. However, there could be significant IPR problems with
anonymous solutions to technical problems.
Russ
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