Subject: Re: Experimental makes sense for tls-authz

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 10:34:11 -0400 (EDT)

> From: Ben Finney <[email-masked]>

    > .. idea patents place control over *every* independent implementation of
    > an idea in the hands of *one* entity, who then gets to dictate whatever
    > terms they like. This is unjust ...  Even developers who are not
    > intending to use ideas encumbered by a particular patent can
    > independently arrive at some specific method described in that patent,
    > and inadvertantly violate the patent rules.  In such cases the violation
    > will not be discovered for some unknown amount of time. The burden on
    > .. developers thus mounts with every patent on a[n] .. idea.

All these points are true of things with physical instantiations, not just
software. Are you therefore advocating getting rid of patents in general?

    > To allow a technology, encumbered by any known patent holder's
    > monopoly, as .. any other status) is to give legitimacy to this system
    > that directly harms development of all software,

RMS' (and the FSF's), hostility to the concept of software intellectual
property is well known. I wasn't impressed with it the first time I heard it
(circa 1982, IIRC), and I'm not impressed with it now.

If you all want to mount a campaign against software patents, feel free. I
think they are mostly pretty lame, and there have been many excesses allowed
by the US patent office (not sure of the status elsewhere).

However, please leave the IETF, as an organzation, out. (Individual IETF
contibutors are of course free to support you.) The IETF has orthagonal goals.

	Noel

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 11:22:12 -0400

As  a personal  political view,  I happen  to be  opposed to  the  notion of
software patents.   But I still think  that the document  in question should
be published as Experimental:

- It's quite plain  that this political view has never  been adopted by IETF
  consensus.  (I also think it plain  that it has no chance of being adopted
  by IETF consensus.)

- I don't think the IETF considers "this document offends my political point
  of view" to be a legitimate  reason for opposing the document.  The degree
  of passion and/or repetition with which the political view is expressed is
  irrelevant.   (The suppression  of  a document  for  political reasons  is
  frequently called "censorship", even if other avenues of publication still
  exist.)

- It's  really within  the  province of  each  WG to  determine whether  its
  standards are  implementable by whoever  needs to implement them  in order
  for  the standard  to be  successful.  This  may or  may not  include open
  source implementations.  

- If a particular proposal is technically sound, but not adopted because the
  WG thinks that  its patent encumbrances are a  bar to implementation, then
  it  is perfectly valid  to publish  the proposal  as a  non-standard track
  RFC.  The only real criterion is that the technical content be interesting
  or otherwise worth preserving.

With regard  to the  coordinated letter writing  attack being waged  on this
list, well, we're all familiar with  the situation in which folks try to get
their way  by getting  lots of non-participants  to send  scripted messages.
Often you can tell that the  message writers don't even know what the issues
are, but at  least most of the letter writing campaigns  pretend to be about
technical  issues;  the  current  campaign  doesn't  even  bother  with  the
pretense!

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:12:33 -0400

>>>>> "Eric" == Eric Rosen <[email-masked]> writes:

    Eric> - I don't think the IETF considers "this document offends my
    Eric> political point of view" to be a legitimate reason for
    Eric> opposing the document.  The degree of passion and/or
    Eric> repetition with which the political view is expressed is
    Eric> irrelevant.  (The suppression of a document for political
    Eric> reasons is frequently called "censorship", even if other
    Eric> avenues of publication still exist.)

I have to disagree with you here.  I think political issues, like
everything else need to be considered in judging whether the IETF or a
WG has rough consensus to publish a document.

That said, judging whether the participants are engaged in the
discussion, have taken the time to come up to speed on the issues, are
involved in the IETF, etc is very appropriate when deciding how much
to weigh opinions expressed.