Re: Previous consensus on not changing patent policy (Re: References to Redphone's patent)
On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 02:11:26PM -0800, Lawrence Rosen wrote: But are the 1,000 or so emails in recent days from the FSF campaign not a loud enough hum to recognize that our IPR policy is out of tune? This is not the first such open source campaign either. IETF needs a more sturdy process to deal with IPR issues. Please consider the suggestions now on the table. Given how badly misinformed the FSF and their 1,000 blind followers were --- no, it's not even a hum. More like the sound of a Concord taking off if an IETF meeting happened to be located in a hotel which was unfortunately located too close to an airport's runways. Full of sound and jury, signifying nothing... :-) - Ted ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Previous consensus on not changing patent policy (Re: References to Redphone's patent)
John Levine wrote: But are the 1,000 or so emails in recent days from the FSF campaign not a loud enough hum to recognize that our IPR policy is out of tune? Are you really saying that all it takes is a mob motivated by an misleading screed to make the IETF change direction? Yes - exactly that. From the sample of the FSF letters I read, many of the people writing didn't know the difference between Redphone and Red Hat, and if as many as two of them had even looked at the draft or IPR disclosure in question, it'd be a lot. The FSF's absolutist position on patents was set in stone 20 years ago. I don't see why we should be impressed if they occasionally throw a handful of pebbles at us. R's, John ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Previous consensus on not changing patent policy (Re: References to Redphone's patent)
Lawrence Rosen wrote: Chuck Powers wrote: +1 That is a legal quagmire that the IETF (like all good standards development groups) must avoid. Chuck is not alone in saying that, as you have just seen. These are the very people who refused to add patent policy to the charter of the previous IPR WG, and who controlled consensus on that point last time. To be precise: Last time was at the San Francisco IETF meeting, March 16-22 2003, and I was the one controlling consensus. The minutes (at http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/03mar/132.htm ) show this conclusion, after much discussion: 1. do you wish this group to recharter to cdhange the IETF's IPR policy hum for (some) hom anti (more) fairly clear consensus against rechartering. anyone disagree? harald: will verified on mailing list, will lead to some debate. if consensus is reached against rechartering... the IETF will not consider proposals to create or reactivate IPR wg before people with compelling arg to do so. those should be different than what prevented so far. Despite the abysmal spelling quality, it was pretty clear at the time that the arguments presented were not compelling. I haven't seen significant new arguments in the meantime; that doesn't mean they don't exist, just that I haven't seen them. Harald ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: Previous consensus on not changing patent policy (Re: References to Redphone's patent)
Harald Alvestrand writing about decisions made on March 16-22 2003: 1. do you wish this group to recharter to cdhange the IETF's IPR policy hum for (some) hom anti (more) fairly clear consensus against rechartering. anyone disagree? Hi Harald, Let's forget the past; I acknowledge we lost that argument then among those few who bothered to hum. But are the 1,000 or so emails in recent days from the FSF campaign not a loud enough hum to recognize that our IPR policy is out of tune? This is not the first such open source campaign either. IETF needs a more sturdy process to deal with IPR issues. Please consider the suggestions now on the table. Best regards, /Larry Lawrence Rosen Rosenlaw Einschlag, a technology law firm (www.rosenlaw.com) 3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482 707-485-1242 * cell: 707-478-8932 * fax: 707-485-1243 Skype: LawrenceRosen -Original Message- From: Harald Alvestrand [mailto:har...@alvestrand.no] Sent: Monday, February 16, 2009 5:10 AM To: lro...@rosenlaw.com Cc: ietf@ietf.org Subject: Previous consensus on not changing patent policy (Re: References to Redphone's patent) Lawrence Rosen wrote: Chuck Powers wrote: +1 That is a legal quagmire that the IETF (like all good standards development groups) must avoid. Chuck is not alone in saying that, as you have just seen. These are the very people who refused to add patent policy to the charter of the previous IPR WG, and who controlled consensus on that point last time. To be precise: Last time was at the San Francisco IETF meeting, March 16-22 2003, and I was the one controlling consensus. The minutes (at http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/03mar/132.htm ) show this conclusion, after much discussion: 1. do you wish this group to recharter to cdhange the IETF's IPR policy hum for (some) hom anti (more) fairly clear consensus against rechartering. anyone disagree? harald: will verified on mailing list, will lead to some debate. if consensus is reached against rechartering... the IETF will not consider proposals to create or reactivate IPR wg before people with compelling arg to do so. those should be different than what prevented so far. Despite the abysmal spelling quality, it was pretty clear at the time that the arguments presented were not compelling. I haven't seen significant new arguments in the meantime; that doesn't mean they don't exist, just that I haven't seen them. Harald ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Previous consensus on not changing patent policy (Re: References to Redphone's patent)
But are the 1,000 or so emails in recent days from the FSF campaign not a loud enough hum to recognize that our IPR policy is out of tune? Are you really saying that all it takes is a mob motivated by an misleading screed to make the IETF change direction? From the sample of the FSF letters I read, many of the people writing didn't know the difference between Redphone and Red Hat, and if as many as two of them had even looked at the draft or IPR disclosure in question, it'd be a lot. The FSF's absolutist position on patents was set in stone 20 years ago. I don't see why we should be impressed if they occasionally throw a handful of pebbles at us. R's, John ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: Previous consensus on not changing patent policy (Re: References to Redphone's patent)
At 2:11 PM -0800 2/16/09, Lawrence Rosen wrote: Let's forget the past; I acknowledge we lost that argument then among those few who bothered to hum. Many of us have heard this in various technical working groups when people who didn't get their way come back later. Such reconsiderations, particularly on topics of a non-protocol nature, are rarely embraced. We are humans with limited time and energy and focus. But are the 1,000 or so emails in recent days from the FSF campaign not a loud enough hum to recognize that our IPR policy is out of tune? No, it is a statement that a group of people who are not active in the IETF want us to spend our time and effort to fix a problem they feel that they have. This is not the first such open source campaign either. IETF needs a more sturdy process to deal with IPR issues. Please consider the suggestions now on the table. Where? I see no Internet Draft, nor any significant group of people who have said they are willing to work on the problem. Seriously, if this is a significant issue for this motivated group of people, they can do some research and write one (or probably more) Internet Drafts. The IETF has never been swayed by blitzes of a mailing list asking for us to do someone else's technical work; we should not be swayed by similar blitzes asking us to do their policy work. We are, however, amazingly (and sometime painfully) open to discussing worked-out solutions of either a technical or policy nature. In this case, worked-out means a document that describes the the current solution, the advantages and disadvantages of it, a proposal for a new solution, and a transition plan. --Paul Hoffman, Director --VPN Consortium ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
Re: Previous consensus on not changing patent policy (Re: References to Redphone's patent)
But are the 1,000 or so emails in recent days from the FSF campaign not a loud enough hum to recognize that our IPR policy is out of tune? Are you really saying that all it takes is a mob motivated by an misleading screed to make the IETF change direction? I certainly hope not because, as you said previously, think what advantage large companies would be able to take of it. From the sample of the FSF letters I read, many of the people writing didn't know the difference between Redphone and Red Hat, Yeah, that was briefly amusing, as was the ones that wanted to stop the standardization of TLS because of this patent. Amusing at first, that is, then quite annoying. and if as many as two of them had even looked at the draft or IPR disclosure in question, it'd be a lot. I think I spotted five that seemed to be somewhat informed. But even those didn't do any sort of analysis of the disclosure or the patent application to back up their assertions. The FSF's absolutist position on patents was set in stone 20 years ago. I don't see why we should be impressed if they occasionally throw a handful of pebbles at us. More to the point, the IETF IPR policy may be spot on or it may be a steaming pile of crap, but this mail bombardment by the FSF proves nothing either way. FWIW, I'm not happy with the current policy, but most of the sketches of alternatives I've seen don't seem like changes for the better. Perhaps if they were fully worked out in the form of a draft and all the loose ends were tied off I'd change my mind. Ned ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
