Re: why to contact the IETF

On Feb 10, 2009, at 2:24 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote:

>> From: "Lawrence Rosen" <lrosen@rosenlaw.com>
>
>> The result of the FSF campaign has been to raise a legal concern
>> obviously important to many of us: Will users of the proposed IETF  
>> TLS
>> specification require patent licenses from RedPhone to use such
>> implementations in the US or elsewhere?
>
> That point could have been raised _much_ more efficiently with a  
> single email
> message from someone such as yourself.
>
>> I don't yet know the answer to this question. Does anyone here?
>
> I'm not sure I'd really believe any determination short of a court's  
> anyway -
> attorneys can advise, but until the proverbial butcher-baker- 
> candlestickmaker
> get their say after a trial, it's got an element of coin-toss to it,  
> no?

In my experience, attorneys will almost never give hard answers to  
questions like this. And it
typically takes a few million dollars in coins to make a toss.

Regards
Marshall

>
>
>> If the TLS specification really is patent-encumbered, in the
>> professional view of experts who have reason to understand the  
>> details,
>> my vote here and those of many FSF members and FOSS advocates too  
>> will
>> be to have nothing more to do with it.
>
> Taking no strong position on this particular specification (which is  
> not in my
> area of interest), but, as a general observation, nothing says  
> anyone has to
> use any particular IETF specification. If you don't want to mess  
> with a
> potential patent hassle, just don't use it.
>
> The IETF is just a place to create standards in an open way, and it  
> seems
> there is some open community of experts interested in this area who  
> seem to
> have determined that the advantages of using an encumbered solution  
> here
> outweigh the disadvantages.
>
> An effective critique of that judgement _does not_ mean just saying
> 'encumbered technology is bad', because most of us already agree  
> with that
> general statement. One would have to understand the details of why  
> they felt
> that that the advantages of using this particular encumbered solution
> outweighed the obvious disadvantages, and show where the problem  
> with that
> reasoning was.
>
> Alternatively, if there are a community of people who see a need,  
> and don't
> like using a patent-encumbered solution, they can create an  
> alternative not so
> hampered - and the IETF would, I would expect, be happy to afford  
> them an open
> forum to do so.
>
> 	Noel
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