headers
Richard Stallman | 2 Nov 00:08
Picon
Picon

Re: Patents can be for good, not only evil

    In a first-to-invent regime, the law still favors one with a patent,
    since it gives one a cross-licensing opportunity to settle a dispute
    with a similar, infringed patent, even if one uses their patent only
    protectively.

    In a first-to-file regime, protective patents are absolutely necessary.  

I checked with Dan Ravicher.  The proposed law would have no effect on
criteria for prior art, so it doesn't make patents for defense either
more or less "necessary" than they currently are.

However, I agree with your main point, that there is no reason to
reject a standard because of a patent, given a suitable royalty-free
blanket license for using the patent.
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Frank Ellermann | 2 Nov 02:51
Picon
Picon

Re: Oppose draft-carpenter-ipr-patent-frswds-00

David Black wrote:

>>| Some PS RFCs are either very little used or very 
>>| complicated, meaning they aren't very popular (to
>>| the Open Source community) or cost to much
>>| (time/money) to develop.

>> Then they don't qualify as DS.  Why should (unpaid) 
>> volunteers bother to check the interoperability of 
>> commercial products and stamp them as DS ?

> I have to object to the implicit assumption that the
> community of "(unpaid) volunteers" working on free (or
> open source or whatever term you prefer) software is
> entitled to a veto over what protocols are useful enough
> to be promoted to draft standard.

The "community" I had in mind was the "IETF community",
and the IETF is certainly entitled to "veto" a promotion
to DS for various reasons.  There's a Last Call.  There
has to be a proper "implementation and interoperabilty
report".  Errata need to be fixed.  

 Frank
Permalink | Reply | 2 comments |
headers
Harald Tveit Alvestrand | 5 Nov 06:21
Picon

Reminder: Offer of time on the IPR WG agenda for rechartering

Just a reminder....

I have not yet seen a request for time on the IPR agenda that is backed 
with an I-D fulfilling the criteria laid out below.

Simon's "free software guideline" exists as an I-D, but I have not had a 
request to put it on the agenda.

The deadline for -00 I-Ds is in a week.

                  Harald Alvestrand

------------ Forwarded Message ------------
Date: 25. oktober 2007 14:30 +0200
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald <at> alvestrand.no>
To: ietf <at> ietf.org, ipr-wg <at> ietf.org
Subject: Offer of time on the IPR WG agenda for rechartering

As it looks now, the IPR WG's meeting in Vancouver will not be extremely
contentious.

So, while priority MUST be given to finishing the WG's current work
(copyrights), it seems reasonable to offer a time slot to proposals to
recharter the WG to deal with patent issues.

I think we can offer at least some time for face-to-face discussion of the
issues - but in order to have a more focused discussion than a general
discussion on whether or not anything needs to be done,

The outcomes I see possible of such a discussion are:
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Frank Ellermann | 5 Nov 07:41
Picon
Picon

Re: Reminder: Offer of time on the IPR WG agenda for rechartering

Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:

> Simon's "free software guideline" exists as an I-D,
> but I have not had a request to put it on the agenda.

It would be odd if I'd request this, but can't even
say if I can watch the IPR meeting over jabber (audio
over a V90 line is anyway hopeless).  Likewise for 
Brian's draft.

 Frank
Permalink | Reply | 1 comment |
headers
Simon Josefsson | 5 Nov 10:18
Favicon
Gravatar

Re: Reminder: Offer of time on the IPR WG agenda for rechartering

Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald <at> alvestrand.no> writes:

> Simon's "free software guideline" exists as an I-D, but I have not had a 
> request to put it on the agenda.

I'm not going to be in Vancouver.  I may make it to the jabber/audio
meeting, but it depends on the final meeting time.  If someone in the WG
wishes to advocate the draft, feel free to do so.

/Simon
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
TS Glassey | 5 Nov 17:13
Picon
Favicon

Re: Reminder: Offer of time on the IPR WG agenda for rechartering

As a side note, Any rechartering of a WG should invalidate an PR Actions 
acted on before it...

Todd Glassey

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Frank Ellermann" <nobody <at> xyzzy.claranet.de>
To: <ipr-wg <at> ietf.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 10:41 PM
Subject: Re: Reminder: Offer of time on the IPR WG agenda for rechartering

Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:

> Simon's "free software guideline" exists as an I-D,
> but I have not had a request to put it on the agenda.

It would be odd if I'd request this, but can't even
say if I can watch the IPR meeting over jabber (audio
over a V90 line is anyway hopeless).  Likewise for
Brian's draft.

 Frank

_______________________________________________
Ipr-wg mailing list
Ipr-wg <at> ietf.org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipr-wg
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Lawrence Rosen | 5 Nov 17:44

RE: Reminder: Offer of time on the IPR WG agenda for rechartering

Harald Alvestrand wrote:
> The outcomes I see possible of such a discussion are:
<snip>

I can't be in Vancouver for this meeting. Probably few of the others who
have been vocal on these issues on these email lists can be in Vancouver
either. 

I hope no decisions will be arrived at in what will probably be an
unrepresentative arena. In-person meetings are an ineffective and expensive
way to decide things in the Internet age. In any event, these email lists
have elicited more comments than any meeting in Vancouver could properly
address. How do we intend to move toward consensus?

FWIW, I support Simon's I-D as far as it goes. It is a fine description
about how free software is adversely affected by restricted copyrights and
patents when implementing so-called "open standards." 

But I don't think that I-D will suffice alone, and I still recommend that
the IPR-WG be re-chartered to propose formal IETF policies that require open
standards for the Internet. We should commit in all IETF working groups to
remain aware of the influence of patents and copyrights on our standards, to
react in intelligent ways to any patent or copyright encumbrances brought to
our attention, and all participants in the specification drafting process
should commit formally to produce open standards unencumbered by copyright
or patent royalties or licensing conditions that would limit implementation
by anyone who wants to do so.

The devil is in the details, but Vancouver is not the place to brush those
details under the rug. We need to re-charter the IPR-WG to fill in the
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Black_David | 5 Nov 17:55

RE: Oppose draft-carpenter-ipr-patent-frswds-00

Frank,

> >>| Some PS RFCs are either very little used or very 
> >>| complicated, meaning they aren't very popular (to
> >>| the Open Source community) or cost to much
> >>| (time/money) to develop.
>  
> >> Then they don't qualify as DS.  Why should (unpaid) 
> >> volunteers bother to check the interoperability of 
> >> commercial products and stamp them as DS ?
> 
> > I have to object to the implicit assumption that the
> > community of "(unpaid) volunteers" working on free (or
> > open source or whatever term you prefer) software is
> > entitled to a veto over what protocols are useful enough
> > to be promoted to draft standard.
> 
> The "community" I had in mind was the "IETF community",
> and the IETF is certainly entitled to "veto" a promotion
> to DS for various reasons.  There's a Last Call.  There
> has to be a proper "implementation and interoperability
> report".  Errata need to be fixed.  

I can definitely agree with that, and I also support doing
things that encourage free software implementations of IETF
protocols (been there, have the scars from working through
that sort of issue in practice), as long as "encourage"
doesn't become "require".  In this regard, I think Simon's
draft could be quite useful when taken to completion - I'm
not signing up for every word or phrase Simon used, but I
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 1 comment |
headers
Steven M. Bellovin | 5 Nov 18:12

Re: Reminder: Offer of time on the IPR WG agenda for rechartering

On Mon, 5 Nov 2007 08:44:33 -0800
"Lawrence Rosen" <lrosen <at> rosenlaw.com> wrote:

> Harald Alvestrand wrote:
> > The outcomes I see possible of such a discussion are:
> <snip>
> 
> I can't be in Vancouver for this meeting. Probably few of the others
> who have been vocal on these issues on these email lists can be in
> Vancouver either. 
> 
> I hope no decisions will be arrived at in what will probably be an
> unrepresentative arena. In-person meetings are an ineffective and
> expensive way to decide things in the Internet age. In any event,
> these email lists have elicited more comments than any meeting in
> Vancouver could properly address. How do we intend to move toward
> consensus?

Per 2418, of course the mailing list decision is the one that counts.
OTOH -- and as is well-understood -- it's often much harder to assess
consensus over the net than in person.  (It's also harder to reach
consensus, in many cases, since email tends to be a polarizing medium,
prone to flames and other forms of intemperate behavior.)

If you have any suggestions for how to deal with these problems -- and
they are problems -- I think the IETF would be very interested in
hearing them.  (And because I realize that this statement can be
misinterpreted, given the lack of tone of voice and body language on a
mailing list, let me stress that I'm being 100% serious, complimentary,
etc.)
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Keith Moore | 5 Nov 18:14
Picon

Re: Reminder: Offer of time on the IPR WG agenda for rechartering


> I'm no longer an AD; if I were, my attitude would be simple:  the IETF
> has decided, as a group, that patented technology is acceptable.
> There's no point to reopening the question every individual document.
>   

+1

though I'd probably phrase this differently, e.g.: the IETF has decided,
as a group, that a blanket patent policy is counterproductive to IETF's
goals.
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |

Gmane