Re: please note: "Variance Request" is about software patents

[Vernon Schryver <[e-mail]>]

> From: Keith Moore <[e-mail]>
> 
> > The IESG has received a request to consider publication of Variance
> > Request for The PPP Connection Control Protocol and The PPP Encryption
> > Control Protocol <draft-kastenholz-ppp-variance-00.txt> as a Best
> > Current Practice RFC.
> 
> Just in case you didn't read this one because it showed up in
> a flurry of other interent-drafts, or because it seemed to be
> specific to PPP, please note...
> 
> The issue behind this variance request has to do with whether
> (and under what conditions) we can standardize protocols that
> allegedly infringe on someone's patent.
> 
> So if you care about this issue, you might want to read the 
> Internet-Draft after all, and send comments to the IESG (or 
> this list) about it.
> 
> The internet-draft is at 
> ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-kastenholz-ppp-variance-00.txt
> 
> IESG's mail address is [e-mail]
> 
> Keith Moore
> 
> p.s. My personal opinion is that it is inappropriate for IETF
> to standardize any technology that cannot be implemented and
> distributed free of charge.  This would exclude patented technology,
> unless the patent holder agrees to license free implementations
> at no cost.


Please read patent 5,130,993 in addition to Mr. Kastenholz's draft. Do
you really think that Motorola should be allowed to prevent the
standardization of compression over serial lines based on a patent with
these two independent sets of claims?:

    - using a CRC or sequence number to detect corruption and the
	consequent need to reset the compression dictionaries, and
	putting the CRC or sequence number inside the compression

    - resetting the compression dictionary after N packets, explicitly
	including resetting the compression dictionary for every packet.

I think the first is completely obvious, having been one of a bazillion
people who independently suggested it over the years.  I hope all
readers of the IETF mailing list agree that the second is absolutely,
completely, incredibly bogus, painfully obvious even to incompetants in
the art, and an obvious application of how compression has been done
for decades.

(The charge that the Motorola warning to the IESG was intended to halt
the development of open compression standards is based on reports from
people who were working for Codex at the time.  I understand that since
then, Motorola has changed its tactics to go along with open standards.)

My personal opinion is that this saga has proven that the IETF and IESG
should get completely out of the patent business, if only to avoid
spending literally years helping outfits stop the progress of a
standard by trying to negotiate on everyone's behalf.

If vendors want to ship products with licensed stuff, that's their
business.  With the Motorola patents, the IETF and IESG have
demonstrated their inate and unavoidable incompetance at deciding
whether a patent is relevant.  Take the decision about the validity of
alledged violations of patents out of the hands of people who can lose
only if they disagree with the patent holder.  Instead, let the market
decide, or at least the patent lawyers at the vendors, the business
people who must decide whether to spend money for a license, and the
customers who must decide whether to buy products that involve the cost
of licenses.

Perhaps it would be wise to never advance a standard that involves
patents past Informational, or to never make a patented protocol
Required, but now even an Informational RFC about an allegedly patented
protocol is impossible.


Vernon Schryver,  [e-mail]