In <1D3A8B2E-D5E1-11D8-896F-000393A56BB6(_at_)glyphic(_dot_)com> Mark Lentczner
<markl(_at_)glyphic(_dot_)com> writes:
My views on the topic are simple : Whatever wants to become an official
"standard" cannot be encumbered with any kind of patents or licences. A
standard must be public domain, free for anybody to comply with, use or
implement without any kind of licences or constraints from any entity.
Otherwise it cannot be a "standard", period.
This view has a lot to commend it. It is not, however, the view of
the IETF. They are willing to consider technology for standards that
have patent or other intellectual property claims. And they are
willing to consider technology for standards that requires a license,
even a license that require royalties. Please see RFC 2026, section
10; and RFC 3668, sections 2, 8 and 10.
Mark, I think you are overstating the position of the IETF in general
when you say that they are willing to consider technology that
requires a license. "Grudgingly accept" might be a better phrase and
there are certainly those in the IETF that won't accept any licensing
requirements at all.
Up until the RSA situation, the IETF didn't allow *any* technology
that needed to be licensed. It was only when RSA Inc was willing to
licenses the RSA public key encryption algorithm in a very free manner
was it allowed into RFCs. Yes, the RSA Inc license restricted the
free use to just those RFCs, but basically RSA Inc gave the IETF
pretty much everything the IETF wanted.
There are still a significant number of people who participate in the
IETF that feel that this decision to allow licensed technology is
wrong. Many more feel that such technology should be used only as a
last resort and only for specialized cases.
I honestly think that when the SenderID proposal goes to the IETF last
call, even if none of us raise the issue, there will be a lot of flak
about choosing something that needs any license. If the license
appears in any way to conflict with the Open Source licenses, I
strongly suspect that the RFC will be sent back to the MARID working
group. If people in the SPF community raise a stink, even if the
license doesn't conflict with the GPL (etc), I think there is a good
chance that it would get sent back.
For those of us who want to see a solid RFC come out of the MARID
working group, things like the licensing problem *MUST* be fixed. We
shouldn't even risk the chance that the "no license ever" crowd will
gain a foothold.
-wayne