Subject: RE: Motion to abandon Sender ID

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 09:20:17 -0700

> Microsoft knows what the issues are, they are receiving comments from 
> multiple people and sources. The decision on  the license is 
> upto them. 
> The decision on the standard on the other hand is upto the us.

Actually from a standards process point of view the only body with
actual decision making power is the IESG. 

This is not a technical issue, it is the type of issue the IESG should
be involved with instead of making technical comments on the WG
output.

The problem here is that a bad precedent was set with the RSA patent.
There are two types of patent at issue, casual patents and 
fundamental ones.

Fundamental patents are very very rare. Perhaps 1 out of 10,000.
They are the patents that describe the only possible way to do
something.

Casual patents are much more common, and will become increasingly 
so. They describe one way of doing something, not the only way.

The fear is that a casual patent be turned into a fundamental one
by virtue of it being made into a standard. The RAMBUS concern is
a real one.

This is something that I believe should be decided at the level
of the community as a whole rather than one working group and
further should allow for license terms to be accepted on a 
general basis so that we do not have this issue in every case.

We might be able to get further if we knew the reason for Microsoft's
insistence on explicit execution of a contract. They appear to me
to have a concern about notice of the contract terms and believe
that constructive notice may not be effective in achieving 
reciprocity.

---

From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 13:04:40 -0400

> general basis so that we do not have this issue in every case.

I agree with Phil that this is something should be raised on a community 
level for the entire IETF since it is bound to come up again. But that 
might be something more suitable for another forum. The question is what 
are we supposed to do in regards to Sender-ID? Approving it on the WG 
level might be considered "final approval" and alienate sizable portions 
of the community. Not approving it, will push Microsoft and others away. 
I don't know if either side will bother taking into account the finer 
distinctions of the IETF approval process. Kind of a catch-22?

Perhaps guidance from the IESG might be helpful here.

> that constructive notice may not be effective in achieving 

They are reading the list.

Yakov

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 4 Sep 2004 04:39:06 -0400 (EDT)

> be involved with instead of making technical comments on the WG

The selection of technology is a technical issue. Patent encumbrances are
a factor in that decision.

> There are two types of patent at issue, casual patents and 

The RSA patent did not set any precedents, other than its subject matter. 
In that sense, every patent is precedent setting.

There are only truly novel patents and patents that aren't truly novel.  

But there is always another way to do something. It may be inconvenient.  
It may be so inconvenient that you don't want to do it, or so inconvenient
that licensing is the grudgingly unhappy but obvious choice.  Or, out of
principle, you may just choose not to do it at all.  But sometimes the
search for another way to do something turns up a better solution: compare
LZW and bzip.

The scary thing about truly novel patents is that they may be so
revolutionary that it will take a long time to find another alternative, 
and so impactful that non-licensees can't survive economically with the 
alternatives.

Another scary thing is that one ordinarilly learns about them 18 months
after the filing. In those 18 months, one may have deployed quite a few
copies of the technology which they will have to pay for, or one may have
committed significant investment in the technology.  You only learn about
this patent expense up to 18 months after its been incurred.

		--Dean