At 3:14 PM +0000 2/17/09, Michael Dillon wrote:
One suggestion, now a specific topic on this list if you care to respond
directly, is for the creation of an IETF IPR Advisory Board to help people
everywhere--including thousands of disaffected FSF campaigners--to
understand why certain patents (including the Redphone "patent") are not
worth worrying about.
- If there are "thousands of disaffected FSF campaigners", this should be
the FSF IPR Advisory Board. You have yet to explain why the aggrieved party
is not willing to do the work to make themselves happy.
There is the germ of a good idea here. History has shown that the FSF
is very concerned
with how the IETF standardisation process deals with patent issues.
This is a reasonable
concern given the FSF's raison d'etre.
Therefore, why not proactively consult the FSF on any standards track
document that
makes use of patented material?
Because we don't know which of them do. For instance, the document that kicked
off the message barrage that preceded thread does not, as far as anyone knows,
"make use of patented material". One company that has a patent *application*
that they think (and probably hope) will get granted says that they think (and
probably hope) applies to the protocol has informed the IETF of that fact.
Their patent might not be granted. It might be granted, but limited in a way
that clearly does not apply to the protocol. It might be granted and two
intelligent people looking at the patent and the protocol could disagree about
where it applies.
Proactively drive the dialogue by
getting the FSF
involved at an early stage, and by providing a separate mailing list
(ietf-comments)
for discussing the IPR issues.
Why single out the FSF? Patent-encumbered protocols affect commercial vendors
to the same extent as they affect FSF members (and possibly moreso).
In addition, more dialogue with FSF members should prove to be useful in
resolving some of the open questions about IPR, copyrights, licencing and
so on.
This is the opposite of what Larry wanted: he wanted lawyers to give advice.
You are wanting non-lawyers to give legal advice. We already have an abundance
of the latter.
--Paul Hoffman, Director
--VPN Consortium
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf