Re: Withdrawal of Approval and Second Last Call: draft-housley-tls-authz-extns

Brian E Carpenter <brc@zurich.ibm.com> writes:

> On 2007-04-11 10:08, Simon Josefsson wrote:
>> Brian E Carpenter <brc@zurich.ibm.com> writes:
>>
>>> Simon,
>>>
>>> Can you identify any instance of a non-profit GPL implementor or
>>> distributor being sued for not having "sent a postcard" for the
>>> style of RF license you are objecting to?
>>
>> Brian, two responses:
>>
>> 1) You seem to assume that GPL implementers would violate the patent
>>    license by redistributing their code without sending a postcard.
>>    In order words, your question assumes and implies bad-faith amongst
>>    GPL implementers.
>
> Not specifically. My question is a practical one. People who receive
> open source code, tweak it, and install it may often be completely
> unaware that they should be asking for a license. Do we have any
> practical evidence that IPR owners actually care?

I don't know.  However, I don't understand how this aspect matters.
Let me explain how I see things, and you can pinpoint where our logic
differ.  I believe that any IPR owner would first contact this person
and ask him to follow their patent license.  Then they either they
play by the rules, and requests the license, or they don't (and a
lawsuit may happen).  Is the IETF interested in supporting people who
doesn't follow the rules?  I believe these people can and should be
educated, but the IETF should not write its rules assuming that people
will not follow rules.

>>    What typically happens in practice, among good-faith practitioners,
>>    is that there won't be any GPL (or Apache, or Mozilla, or ...)
>>    implementation of the patented technology at all, because the
>>    necessary rights cannot be acquired.
>
> Doesn't that sound like a bug in the OSS licenses to you, assuming the
> desired result is to make the Internet work better?

The assumption is false: the goal of free software is not to make the
Internet work better.

Would you also claim that Microsoft Windows license has a bug in it
because it does not permit certain things (i.e., creating patches
yourself to avoid massive security holes) that would make the Internet
work better?

I hope you get the point that your assumption here was flawed.

The IETF has the goal of making the Internet work better.  Thus, the
IETF has to accept the license reality, both proprietary and free
software, and do whatever leads to a better Internet.

I don't see how favoring proprietary software makes the Internet work
better, rather the opposite.  Thus I believe the IETF can be more free
software friendly, especially since doing that isn't in conflict with
proprietary vendors.  The proprietary vendors needs similar rights as
the free software community does.

The only reason I can see to be non-friendly to the free software
community would be because the market share for proprietary vendors
would decline in favor of free software.  But I have not seen any
convincing results that indicate that this would modify how well the
Internet works, which should be the IETF's primary concern.

(I would argue that making the Internet run on free software actually
would make the Internet better, because it is easier to fix security
bugs, although I suppose it will be difficult to find consensus on
this here.)

>> 1) I don't believe this is a 'send a postcard' license.  If you read
>>    Mark's patent license, it starts with:
>>
>>    "Upon request, RedPhone Security will ...
>>
>>    I interpret this to mean that unless RedPhone responds to your
>>    requests, you have not received any rights.  Is this incorrect?
>
> I'm assuming you will get a postcard in reply, certainly.
>>
>> There are examples where companies won't respond to requests for these
>> type of RF patent licenses.
>
> The phrase you quote doesn't allow for that.

But reality allow for that.  The URLs I quoted indicate that this do
happen.  It is better if the license were written in a way to avoid
this problem.

>> A different problem is if the patent is owned by a small company, and
>> the company goes away.
>
> Normally the patent will fall into the hands of whoever strips
> the assets. That's why a carefully constructed perpetual RF
> license is needed, in any case.

Right, and a carefully constructed license would avoid the requirement
to send and receive postcards.

>> Still, I'm not sure even a "send-a-postcard" patent license would be
>> compatible with free software licenses.  Sending the postcard appear
>> to be an additional requirement, something that some free software
>> licenses explicitly forbid.
>
> I think that is a bug in the OSS licenses. Whatever you or I may think
> of patent law, it isn't going away, and the OSS licenses need to deal
> with it realistically IMHO.

I disagree.  Seen from the point of view of the goals of free
software, there is no bug.  If the IETF has conflicting goals, and I
believe that it clearly does here, it will have to deal with the
reality in order to further its goals.

You may argue that free software licenses should change, and if you
participate in that process, you may very well influence it.  GPLv3 is
in draft form right now.  But that is a different story.

/Simon

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