Subject: Re: RF policy helps achieve unencumbered standards?

From: Scott Bradner <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 08:45:25 -0400 (EDT)

Daniel was seen to claim:
  - The vast majority of internet users know why patent-encumbered internet
    standards are bad, and do not want them.

humm - can you please point to the research that backs up this claim.

It seems counter to logic - seems to me that the "vast majority of internet
users" do not have the first thought about the topic - at least in the US,
they use their Microsoft-based machines to access the Internet via AOL,
earthlink or compuserv and just use the software that came with their
machines (where Microsoft has dealt with whatever IPR issues there might
have been) - there seems to be no reason for them to have ever encountered
this issue.

you might more reasonably claim that you think that the "vast majority" of
those Internet users who use Linux think that "patent-encumbered internet
standards are bad, and do not want them" but even then it would seem that
would be an opinion on your part not a fact.

Scott
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From: Daniel Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 15:28:42 +0200

> humm - can you please point to the research that backs up this claim.

Do you need more evidence than this:

  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpolicy-comment/2001Oct/thread.html

You may want to count the comments in favor of and against RAND.

> have been) - there seems to be no reason for them to have ever encountered

When the public learned that the W3C was proposing a RAND-based policy, it
collectively and convincingly demonstrated that is does have thoughts about
the topic.

> would be an opinion on your part not a fact.

No, look at the W3C patent-policy list.  It is not packed with Linux users,
I would guess the majority of posters are Windows users.

Ignoring history, or revising it, is generally not a good idea.

Regards,

Daniel

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From: Scott Bradner <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 09:32:28 -0400 (EDT)

> Do you need more evidence than this:

with a few 100 million people on the Internet - yes, quite a bit more
to accept your claim that the "The vast majority of internet users" have
any opinion on anything

Scott

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From: Ami Ganguli <[email-masked]>
Date: 17 Apr 2003 18:20:20 +0300

> to accept your claim that the "The vast majority of internet users" have

How about "the vast majority of internet users who know enough about the
issue to have an opinion oppose patent encumbered standards".

This statement certainly passes the sniff-test.  The opposite statement
certainly wouldn't pass the sniff test.  If there were a large body of
people who favoured encumbered standards they would have made their
presence felt outside of IP discussion lists.

The obvious solution to this problem is to try to draw participation
from a broader base.  

How do you engage new people who have no interest in profiting from
patents?

... Ami.

-- 
Ami Ganguli <[email-masked]>

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From: Scott Bradner <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 10:29:01 -0400 (EDT)

> issue to have an opinion oppose patent encumbered standards".

better :-)

Scott

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 16:31:01 +0200

> You may want to count the comments in favor of and against RAND.

What on earth has that stuffed ballot got to do with "the vast majority
of internet users"?

As Scott said, the vast majority of Internet users probably haven't got
the faintest idea about any of this. Do you think the 22 million users
alleged to exist in China have an opinion?

Also, we established some time ago that it is at least a year too
soon to observe and judge the effects of the W3C stance. 

   Brian

  Brian

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From: Daniel Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 17:00:14 +0200

On Thu 17 Apr 03 16:31, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> > >   - The vast majority of internet users know why patent-encumbered
> > > internet standards are bad, and do not want them.
> > >

How can you say that the ballot was stuffed?  The existence of the mailing 
list was publicized, and the issue was publicized.  Everybody who wanted to 
comment was able to.  It was remarkable how few chose to support the W3C's 
proposed RAND policy.

> soon to observe and judge the effects of the W3C stance.

Agreed, but it is not too soon to form a new working group, explicitly 
chartered to examine the question of whether the time has come to make 
substantial changes to the IETF's IPR policy.  By the time the working group 
is ready to report, it will have had the luxury of being able to review the 
effects of the W3C's new policy after a year or two of operation.

Regards,

Daniel

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From: Ami Ganguli <[email-masked]>
Date: 17 Apr 2003 19:20:49 +0300

> soon to observe and judge the effects of the W3C stance. 

Since you went to trouble of making the point that most people on the
Internet have no opinion about patent policy, I should point out that
"we" have established no such thing.  

There were a number of people who expressed that opinion, but many of us
just didn't care to comment.

Seems like you've made the same mistake - assuming those who say nothing
must agree with you.

... Ami.

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 17:45:54 +0200

> comment was able to.  It was remarkable how few chose to support the W3C's

The W3C is a membership organization, so most of us who have opinions
and work for members left it to our reps. It was very clear from a glance
at the archive that the free software movement had mobilised itself, and that
the commercial software industry hadn't.

    Brian

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 17:49:26 +0200

> Seems like you've made the same mistake - assuming those who say nothing

No, I'm making a judgement about the rough consensus of the
views expressed on this list. But it stands to sense, doesn't
it? You can't judge the effect of a change of policy until it has
taken effect and had time to work through the system, with both
its intended and unintended consequences. Actually, a year is probably
too little time.

   Brian

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From: [email-masked] (Bruce Perens)
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 09:13:30 -0700 (PDT)

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
> Do you think the 22 million users alleged to exist in China have an opinion?

Yes. Many of them are politicaly socialists or communists, like their
government. So, they have different ideas about private property than
you and me.

Regarding their government, they have a system for reward of invention that
is separate from their patent law.

They have provisions in their patent law prohibiting the grant of patents
that are detrimental to the public interest, and a specific rule
prohibiting patents on rules and processes for "mental activities", which
we'd call "algorithms".

	Thanks

	Bruce

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From: Daniel Phillips <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 18:17:17 +0200

On Thu 17 Apr 03 17:45, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> Daniel Phillips wrote:
> > How can you say that the ballot was stuffed?  The existence of the
> > mailing list was publicized, and the issue was publicized.  Everybody who
> > wanted to comment was able to.  It was remarkable how few chose to
> > support the W3C's proposed RAND policy.
>
> at the archive that the free software movement had mobilised itself, and
> that the commercial software industry hadn't.

You are mistaken.  There was actually no organized mobilization, it was all 
spontaneous.  What happened was, the media picked up the story, and provided 
the posting address of the list.

The thing is, the issue is very easy to understand.

Regards,

Daniel

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From: Ami Ganguli <[email-masked]>
Date: 17 Apr 2003 20:24:58 +0300

On Thu, 2003-04-17 at 18:49, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> views expressed on this list. 

That's fine.  In fact I new what you meant.  I was just nitpicking
because you were.  If you're going to call people on small points then
you have to be careful yourself.  The word "established" was misleading
- it implied that there was no further room for debate.

> But it stands to sense, doesn't

It's a matter of how you look at it.  I suppose you could make the
philosophical argument that you never really know what's going to happen
tomorrow until it really occurs.  But you can make certain common sense
judgments about what is likely to happen.

Since I can't imagine a realistic scenario where the W3C policy would
cause more problems than it prevents, I would be prepared to say it's
already a success.

Of course this is a matter of perspective.  For me, a RAND standard is
much worse than no standard at all.  So your "unintended consequences"
would have to be awfully grave for me to say that the W3C policy had
failed.  So grave that I just can't conceive of such a scenario.

Others will weigh things differently and will count even the slightest
inconvenience due the policy as evidence of failure.

... Ami.