Subject: Call for volunteers to discuss IETF patent policy with Richard Stallman

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:23:36 -0500 (EST)

Hi all, while discussing the whole TLS-AUTHZ situation with Richard Stallman
of the FSF, he asked me to put him in touch with a couple of IETFers who are
interested in trying to get the IETF to commit to staying further away from
patent encumbrances in standards (distinctly patents, as opposed to other
forms of IPR).

I told him that I would try and rustle up some people, but that I thought it
better to find some people on both sides for him to interact with, because I
was concerned that if he only interacted with one side, he might get too
hopeful a view of the likelihood of success for an attempt to change IETF
policy in this area.

He agreed that this would be good, since such an effort would involve a lot
of effort, and he would only want to undertake it if it had a significant
chance of success, and he did want to get a realistic appraisal of how things
stood.

So, if anyone wants to volunteer to interact with him on this matter, his
email is "rms -at- gnu.org" (and this is CC'd to him), and please contact him.

Sorry to the TLS members for the BCC to them too (if any of them are
wondering how this got to them :-), if it's out of your scope, but given that
TLS-AUTHZ was the cause of all this, I thought there might be some there who
aren't on the IPR mailing list who might be interested to responding to him.

Please also note that I am just _relaying_ this request, I am not myself
directly deeply interested in whether the IETF has, or has not, a strong
prohibition on patents; I am not receiving email from either list, and
propose to take no further part in any of this. So if you want me to see any
particular reply, for some reason, please make sure you CC me directly.

Thanks!

	Noel

---

From: TSG <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:21:06 -0800

> patent encumbrances in standards (distinctly patents, as opposed to other
my feeling is that this is very inappropriate and paints the FSF as a 
political lobbyist entity which is what the IETF is not set up to become.
> hopeful a view of the likelihood of success for an attempt to change IETF
Thanks... again the IETF should offer a standard to anyone or any IP 
which meets the technical terms of the issuance of that standard. I.e. 
properly vetted, and which meets the IETF's interoperability testing 
standards too.

The only people that patented IP would be offensive to are people who 
want to destroy global patents, and that is an issue about changing the 
world, and not about qualifying that some technology met the standards 
for the issuance of an IETF Standard. If the FSF wants to create 
FSF-License style IP's then it should operate its own IETF-type 
standards process for publicly available IP's only.
> particular reply, for some reason, please make sure you CC me directly.
What the IETF needs a process to create standards which is not subject 
to the emotional or political whim of the people sitting in the WG or 
other chairs within the IETF at that time, but rather uniform and 
consistent mode for all which doesn't allow this bull-sh*t voting on 
whether the IETF WG will allow a standard into it or not.

The IETF is not the over seer of the Internet and it needs to take a 
role that is more consistent with its charter.

Todd Glassey

> Thanks!
>
> 	Noel
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