Re: Previous consensus on not changing patent policy (Re: References to Redphone's "patent")

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> >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