If someone fails to read the front page of an RFC which clearly states what
that document is and is not, that is their problem. There is no excuse for
stupidity or laziness.
There is a real problem with people thinking that RFC == Free License. We need
to educate people and maybe consider new ways to get that message out. But it
has nothing to do with the status of the document. The purpose of RFCs is in
the *name*: Request For Comments. How much more clear can you get? It is a memo
publication channel for documents related to internet technologies. It is a way
for people to communicate ideas and preserve them. Standards are just a small
part of it.
There is no connection between the document status (standard, info,
experimental, etc.) to its IPR status. Yes, most standards tend to be free, but
that is still a document by document distinction. And to argue that it is
different elsewhere is wrong. For example, OASIS has plenty of standards that
are not free. I am willing to bet that there are more fee-based licensed
standards in the world than free ones. You have to understand the wide range of
topics discussed in the IETF and the fact that a lot of it might be of no
consequences to open source developers. It is not the job of the IETF to fight
against the patent system. What we need to make sure is that the communities
creating standards ensure that their expected audience can implement it.
If you don't understand how something works, saying its broken is the lazy way
out. Should we do a better job educating people about the IPR consequences of
using RFCs? Of course! Should we make it harder for encumbered tech to make it
into standards? Hell yeah! But we need to solve the problem where it belongs.
As for TSG's comments: show me an organization this size that doesn't have
people who worry more about their ass than the community they are in. You
comment makes as much sense as saying that you would not vote for president
because politics is dirty and all about self promotion. Grow up.
EHL
On 3/11/09 3:54 PM, "TSG" <tglassey(_at_)earthlink(_dot_)net> wrote:
Lawrence Rosen wrote:
Because Larry - many of those here owe their ongoing $$$ livelihood to
the lie the IETF has become. And so what you are suggesting is
increasing the rolls of the unemployed by adding these individuals who's
whole existence is the IETF. Its also these people in my opinion that
make the IETF the laughingstock its become as you so rights notice that
RFC's and the process for creating standards has degraded into a model
where there really is no standard.
Just my two cents
Todd Glassey
The recent threads about draft-housley-tls-authz have taught me
something I didn't know about IETF, and I don't like what I've learned.
There are, it appears, many types of IETF RFCs, some which are
intended to be called "Internet standards" and others which bear other
embedded labels and descriptions in their boilerplate text that are
merely "experimental" or "informational" or perhaps simply "proposed
standard". One contributor here described the RFC series as "a
repository of technical information [that] will be around when I am no
longer around."
The world is now full of standards organizations that treat their
works as more significant than merely "technical information." Why do
we need IETF for that purpose? If all we need is a repository of
technical information, let's just ask Google and Yahoo to build it for
us. Maybe our Internet standards should instead be created in an
organized body that pays serious attention to the ability of the wide
world to implement those standards without patent encumbrances.
But even if IETF isn't willing to amend its patent policy that far-and
most SDOs still aren't, unfortunately-at the very least we should take
our work seriously. When someone proposes a serious RFC, we should
demand that the water around that RFC be swept for mines-especially
**disclosed** patent mines that any serious sailor would want to
understand first.
If IETF isn't willing to be that serious, maybe we should recommend
that our work go to standards organizations that do care? As far as my
time to volunteer for a better Internet, there are far better ways to
do it than listening here to proposals that are merely "technical
information." At the very least, separate that into a different list
than IETF.org so I know what to ignore!
By the way, many of the same companies and individuals who are
involved here in IETF are also active participants in W3C, OASIS, and
the new Open Web Foundation, all of which organizations pay more
attention to patents and the concept of "open standards" than what
IETF seems to be doing here. So let's not be disingenuous, please.
Almost everyone here has previous experience doing this the right way.
/Larry
Lawrence Rosen
Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a technology law firm (www.rosenlaw.com
<http://www.rosenlaw.com>)
3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482
707-485-1242 * cell: 707-478-8932 * fax: 707-485-1243
Skype: LawrenceRosen
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