RE: Previous consensus on not changing patent policy (Re:Referencesto Redphone's patent)
One problem I see with that approach would be the inevitable replay of TLS-auth - a working group agrees up front that there is patent-encumbered technology that is too useful to not include in the spec (which has happened in the IETF in the past), that group would therefore agree to follow that model, and then when they were done, a firestorm of FSF folks who had not even read the material, much less were aware of how the original decision had been reached, would assail the IETF with the sky is falling emails about how the world will come to an end if the IETF publishes the specification. Apart from that, it would likely be a total rats nest to try and track what work was done under what IPR agreement; allowing IPR policy decisions to be made on a WG by WG basis would, IMO, be a nightmare, except for the lawyers. Regards, Chuck - Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Hallam-Baker, Phillip Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 4:18 PM To: TSG; John Levine Cc: ietf@ietf.org Subject: RE: Previous consensus on not changing patent policy (Re:Referencesto Redphone's patent) Do you think that the IETF has changed direction though? Methinks not. This is one of those issues where there is a faction that will defend the status quo regardless of the flaws that are revealed. They will wait till the end of the discussion and announce that there is no consensus to do anything differently so they must win. I really do not understand the justification for not allowing a WG to state the IPR policy that will apply during the charter process. If we are going to have people volunteer time an effort to create a standard they have the right to know at the start whether the result will be encumbered or if one particular party gets to set up a toll booth. In fact there are two very different status quos. There is the defacto status quo and there is the de jure status quo. And it is rather interesting that on every one of my pet IETF peeves, my position is the defacto status quo and it is only the official status quo that is out of line. Officially a working group does not need to set an IPR standard up front. In practice every working group in any part of the IETF I participate in has to deliver a standard that is compliant with the W3C policy that every essential part of the spec be implementable without using encumbered technology. Attempts to do otherwise are totally futile. I guess it is possible that things are different outside the security, applications and operations side, but I find it very hard to believe that a necessary to implement technology at the Internet level could be encumbered without creating a blogstorm of slashdot proportions. Officially the specs are in the obsolete text format In practice they are written in XML and the engineers implementing them use either the HTML version or buy the O'Rielly nutshell book. Officially there are three stages in the standards process In practice there are two stages. I really wish it was possible to have a discussion on this topic without getting condescending lectures as to why it is absolutely unthinkable to change the official status quo when folk are already doing exactly what I have been suggesting for five years or more. -Original Message- From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org on behalf of TSG Sent: Tue 2/17/2009 5:42 PM To: John Levine Cc: ietf@ietf.org Subject: Re: Previous consensus on not changing patent policy (Re: Referencesto Redphone's patent) John Levine wrote: 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? Yes - exactly that. From the sample of the FSF letters I read, many of the people writing didn't know the difference between Redphone and Red Hat, and if as many as two of them had even looked at the draft or IPR disclosure in question, it'd be a lot. 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. R's, John ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org
RE: FSF's comment on draft-housley-tls-authz-extns
+1 Regards, Chuck - Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 -Original Message- From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of ned+i...@mauve.mrochek.com Sent: Friday, February 13, 2009 10:14 AM To: Sam Hartman Cc: ietf@ietf.org Subject: Re: FSF's comment on draft-housley-tls-authz-extns ... I'm sorry, I don't see this at all. I appreciate that you quoted the text in question. However I don't see anything in the language you quote that applies differently to either users or developers. Well, there's something of an exemption for developers producing generic uilding block software. But I take your point to be that a developer who, say, puts in specialized support for a Redphone critical extension (item one of the four), would clearly be infringing. The text is saying that the transport mechanisms described in the Housley draft are not covered by the patent. However the text goes on to say that some ways in which an implementation might employ those transport mechanisms would be covered by the patent. As I read the text, both developers and users who used the mechanisms in the Housley draft in any of these four ways would infringe the patent, Redphone claims. Nicely put. I agree with this assessment. However I'll also note that there are significant uses of the transport mechanisms in the Housley draft that are interesting both to the free software and IETF communities that fall well outside these four areas. In particular, transporting in-band group memberships and authorization/attribute assertions see.ms to fall outside these areas. Exactly. I can understand why the GNU project would not choose to ship an extension to GNU TLS that used this transport to send agreement locations. Sure, that would clearly infringe. The question to my mind is whether or not this is an overly onerous restriction. I don't think it is but others may disagree. However, it is completely absurd to claim that because some infrastructure building block could (by writing additional software) be used in a manner that infringes a patent that no free software version of that building block can exist. As an example, the FSF ships a compiler collection that can be used to infringe a number of patents in the hands of someone who has infringing source code. The GNU/Linux kernel includes a TCP implementation that can be used to infringe Redphone's patent. This is the point I was trying to make in my earlier response. There are many use-case patents built on top of pretty much any protocol building block you can think of. If we adopt the theory, which is implicit in many of the objections I've seem to this document, that we cannot work on protocol building blocks when such use-case patents exist, we'll effectively be out of business. I will also point out that the list of IPR disclosures includes very few of these patents. Demanding the disclosure of all such patents participants are aware of would be ... interesting. Ned ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: References to Redphone's patent
+1 That is a legal quagmire that the IETF (like all good standards development groups) must avoid. Regards, Chuck - Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 -Original Message- From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Narten Sent: Friday, February 13, 2009 2:31 PM To: Noel Chiappa Cc: ietf@ietf.org Subject: Re: References to Redphone's patent j...@mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) writes: From: Lawrence Rosen lro...@rosenlaw.com the previous IPR WG .. refused even to discuss a patent policy for IETF. I thought the IETF sort of had one, though (see RFC mumble)? I definitely agree that the IETF could use some sort of permanent legal IPR consulting board that WG's could go to and say 'we have this IPR filing, what does it mean, and what is the likely impact on our work'. Please don't go there. IPR consultation is all about risk analysis. And risk to the IETF vs. risk to me personally vs. risk to my employer vs. risk to somebody else's employer, etc. All are VERY different things. I don't see an IPR consulting board as being helpful at all. It will still come down to someone else trying to tell *me* (or you) that I (or you) shouldn't worry about something, yet it might well be *my* (or your) skin if things go awry. The IETF absolutely and fundamentally needs stay out of evaluating the merits of potential IPR and what the associated risks are. This is fundamentally an individual decision that every implementor needs to make on their own. This principle has been a bedrock of the IETF's IPR policy for a very long time, and for good reason. Oh, and another important point, even when we have IPR disclosures, they are often for patent applications, which are not public, nor have they been issued (so they are only potential patents). In such cases, there is precious little an advisory board could tell us, other than we don't know... Thomas ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: TLS WG Chair Comments on draft-ietf-tls-authz-07
I am curious - is this a commitment by the TLS chairs to actually work on this document? Or simply an attempt to prevent the IESG from advancing a document that the WG previously declined to work on, and could easily do so again? I have no strong feelings on the document itself, as it is out of my technical area of expertise. However, it is confusing to me for the chairs of a working group to pass on working on a document due to lack of interest, and then claim that the IESG should not advance it outside of the WG process because they lead a relevant working group in this area - you can't have it both ways. IMO, if the chairs are committing to actually work on the document as part of the TLS work program, great, perhaps it makes sense for the IESG to send it to TLS for consideration. However, if not, then the IESG should take into account the fact that TLS declined to address it when it was offered to them, assume that this could easily happen again, and proceed with making their decision to approve or not outside of the WG process. Otherwise, it simply smells like an attempt to deep six the document by pulling it back into a WG which has already declined to address it, with no real commitment to work on it this time, either. Regards, Chuck - Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 -Original Message- From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Eric Rescorla Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 11:34 PM To: i...@ietf.org; ietf@ietf.org; draft-housley-tls-authz-ex...@tools.ietf.org Subject: TLS WG Chair Comments on draft-ietf-tls-authz-07 [Resent with proper addressing information] As chairs of the TLS Working Group, we request that the IESG not approve draft-ietf-tls-authz-07 as a Proposed Standard. This document was initially brought to the TLS WG, which passed on it due to lack of interest and it was subsequently advanced as an individual submission, but IESG approval was rescinded after the disclosure of IPR that affected the document. These events occurred in late 2006 and early 2007. In the nearly two years since the previous attempts at progressing the document, the authors have not coordinated with the TLS WG. The TLS WG was not consulted prior to the start of this new Last Call. Although we recognize that opinions vary about the wisdom of advancing documents as individual submissions, this does not seem like an edge case to us. First, there is a functioning, relevant, working group: TLS. While it is true that the WG did not object to advancement two years ago, that was with the impression that it would be uncontroversial, which clearly is not the situation. On the contrary, the IPR situation remains quite unclear and there are also technical issues with the document (see Eric Rescorla's separate review), as well as at least one part of the document which is obsoleted by RFC 5246. These factors provide substantial evidence that the document would benefit from the Working Group process. If the authors wish to advance the document on the standards track, the appropriate path is to submit it to the TLS WG as a work item. TLS WG has the appropriate participation and skills to evaluate the need for this work and the suitability of this document. If there is sufficient support for work in this area (including the usual RFC 3979 IPR Evaluation), then it can advance through the standards track via the WG process. If the authors don't wish to go through the WG process, we do not oppose advancement of this document as Experimental. However, we do not believe that advancing a two year old document which is clearly in scope of an active WG is an appropriate use of the individual submission process. Therefore we urge the IESG not to approve this document. Eric Rescorla Joe Salowey [TLS WG Chairs] ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: FWIW: draft-housley-tls-authz-extns-07.txt to Proposed Standard
+1 If the bar for allowing technology to move forward in the IETF is that it must not only be unencumbered itself, but _any_ use of it must also be unencumbered, then we may as well all go home, after rescinding TCP, IP, HTTP, and anything else we have done in the past - these are all used to do some things that are themselves encumbered. Welcome to the real world. If the technology in the document to be standardized is unencumbered, then the fact that _some_ uses of that technology may run into encumbered territory is irrelevant, except to those who hate patents in general. Regards, Chuck - Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 -Original Message- From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Brian E Carpenter Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 7:51 PM To: ietf@ietf.org Subject: FWIW: draft-housley-tls-authz-extns-07.txt to Proposed Standard FWIW (and it would be good if other actual IETF participants care to indicate +1 if they agree): The actual words in RedPhone's current disclosure: RedPhone Security hereby asserts that the techniques for sending and receiving authorizations defined in TLS Authorizations Extensions (version draft-housley-tls-authz-extns-07.txt) do not infringe upon RedPhone Security's intellectual property rights (IPR)... Now, there's been some discussion of whether some use cases for the protocol will nevertheless lead implementors to infringe, but that (plus the question of whether the offered license conditions in that case are in fact acceptable) is frankly irrelevant. The draft on the table is in itself unencumbered by RedPhone Security, and that's all that matters as far as the IETF's IPR rules go. There may be other reasons not to advance this document; not being a security person, I have no opinion about that. But as far as this particular IPR issue is concerned, IMHO it's good to go. Brian ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: FSF whinging
Indeed. Perhaps it would be a more credible spam campaign if draft-housley-tls-authz-extns-07.txt actually infringed the IPR held by RedPhone. Regards, Chuck - Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 -Original Message- From: ietf-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ietf-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Clint Chaplin Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 4:49 PM To: IETF discussion list Subject: FSF whinging I see that the FSF has beeen alerted. Prepare for the flood of very similar whinges from people who have not immersed themselves in the subject at hand. -- Clint (JOATMON) Chaplin Principal Engineer Corporate Standardization (US) SISA ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: FW: IETF copying conditions
My answer to Larry's question - Yes. Regards, Chuck - Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lawrence Rosen Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2008 12:14 PM To: 'Harald Alvestrand'; ietf@ietf.org Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: FW: IETF copying conditions Harald Alvestrand wrote; - The discussion of permitting change to text was extensive and repeated. - The consensus of the working group was the compromise position now documented. I assert that if you want to claim that either of these two statements are false, YOU back it up with evidence. As it stands, you are making statements that I personally, as the WG chair who's tried to shepherd this process for the last 3 years, find to be crossing the border between uninformed speculation and assertions that I would have to take personal affront at. Harald, I certainly meant no insult to your efforts to shepherd an IPR group with a *flawed charter* [1] to a conclusion with which I disagree. You and I discussed this many times in-channel and back-channel, and you remember my frustrations and my sympathy for your position then and now. Indeed, we just wasted another thread arguing about the nonsensical distinction between code and text and again heard some people assert it is somehow relevant to the goal of pushing the IETF brand and seeking consistency on standards. The proposed IETF IPR policy allows the public to modify the code present in IETF specifications but not to use that same specification to create modified text to document that modified code! Does anyone here honestly believe this is justified? You admit: The working group took no vote. Nobody ever does in IETF. It is thus possible for a small group of people who have the stomach to attend to boring IPR discussions to come to an irrational conclusion. Since there was never a vote, I retain the right to repeat my concerns. You'll notice I've not tried to dominate this thread, but I was invited to comment once again--and I did. -1. /Larry [1] Failure to address patents; failure to identify the goals for IETF of a revised copyright policy; failure to weigh benefits and costs to the public of various alternatives. P.S. I moved this back to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Even though some people there find these battles over legal issues boring and distracting, this policy is the guts of why we're here. It should be the entire organization that debates the charter and results of a policy working group, not the working group itself. -Original Message- From: Harald Alvestrand [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 10:22 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: FW: IETF copying conditions Lawrence Rosen wrote: Ted Hardie wrote: Just to forestall Jorge spending some of his valuable time on this, I note that I'm not confused about this point--I was talking about cases where SDOs wished to re-publish (modified) IETF text within their own specs. This does not mean that they that they write it down and say here is the text from RFC ; it means that they want to take the text, change it, and re-publish it. Allowing someone to say no to that is something the working group has said it wants to retain. I don't believe you can point to a vote anywhere in the IPR WG on that exact point. Instead, you and others on the committee moved the discussion into the misleading topic of code vs. text, and pretended that there was some difference important to you. Larry, that is your claim. I don't dispute the claim that we haven't taken a vote, because the IETF does not vote. But I will assert two things: - The discussion of permitting change to text was extensive and repeated. - The consensus of the working group was the compromise position now documented. I assert that if you want to claim that either of these two statements are false, YOU back it up with evidence. As it stands, you are making statements that I personally, as the WG chair who's tried to shepherd this process for the last 3 years, find to be crossing the border between uninformed speculation and assertions that I would have to take personal affront at. Some breadcrumbs from the archives - both the meeting minutes, the ticket server and the email archives are online, and you should be able to find them easily to verify: The issue tracker shows #1169: Modified excerpts, with the first text Should modified versions of excerpts from non-code text be permitted?. https://rt.psg.com/Ticket/Display.html?id=1169 The resolution, as of November 13, 2007 (I was lame in my tracker
RE: authorizing subsequent use of contributions
Indeed, I was referring to patent licensing statements, and not copyrights (which are not usually addressed in the disclosure statements that patent owners submit). Regards, Chuck - Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 -Original Message- From: Simon Josefsson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 7:21 PM To: Brian E Carpenter Cc: John C Klensin; Powers Chuck-RXCP20; ietf@ietf.org Subject: Re: authorizing subsequent use of contributions Brian E Carpenter [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Yes, but it doesn't change the fact that our rules (both old and proposed new) only allow two very specific deviations from the grant of license for derivative works. Agreed. I assumed Chuck talked about patent disclosures when he said IPR disclosure, and then he would be correct that they can say anything and the language in them will likely change given the new policies. I assume you interpreted him as meaning copyright disclosure, and then he would be wrong as you explained; there are only very limited copyright choices when contributing anything to the IETF. Re-reading what he wrote, I'm not sure what he intended. Another reason to avoid the term IPR... /Simon ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: Removal of IETF patent disclosures?
I don't feel that strongly about being able to remove patent disclosures which no longer have any value; if the concensus is to keep them in an increasingly cluttered list of disclosures, so be it. The only situation I was looking to avoid was the whining that would ensue when a patent holder submitted a disclosure for a specific contribution into a specific working group, the technology doesn't make it into the standard, and then someone else later tries to take that same technology, knowing (or not) that a disclosure was on file for it for the original submission, puts it into an ID for another working group, and then finds out the hard way that the original licensing commitment doesn't apply. However, I guess knowing that there might be some proprietary technology in the original contribution (and thus the latter one) would still be useful information, even if the licensing commitment was no longer valid. I expect the result will be more specifics in each patent disclosure, and the subsequent submission of amendments by patent holders reiterating that a licensing commitment is no longer valid, with the failure of the specific contribution to make it into the IETF standard that was originally targeted. Regards, Chuck - Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joel M. Halpern Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2008 8:20 AM To: Simon Josefsson Cc: IETF Discussion Subject: Re: Removal of IETF patent disclosures? I have to agree with a number of other folks. Patent statements can not be removed. It is probably reasonable to have a section for apparently not currently relevant disclosures. But the disclosures, and the terms therein, are still active. This is important for many reasons, including confirming what was historically relied on, having available information if a working group returns to an item, and other issues. Adding annotations, and organizing information for simplicity and clarity are fine. Removing information is not fine. Yours, Joel M. Halpern ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: Removal of IETF patent disclosures?
I don't believe there is anything in the IETF policies that forbids the removal of an IPR declaration, either, so no IPR Policy change would in fact be required. IMO, that argument is a non-starter. As for someone else 'picking up' an ID that someone else submitted, the only situation I could see that even being relevant too would be having the original sumbitter lose interest, but someone else in the same working group picking up the draft and running with it. Perhaps, this might be a good reason to maintain the IPR disclosures until the working group is closed down, or some other clear sign that the contribution made into that working group will never go anywhere. As from someone taking an ID contributed into a working group and trying to push it into something else, again, a good attorney will ensure that the IPR disclosure would not be valid for that case. Maybe that is the filter - for IPR disclosures specific to a working group, if the technology didn't make it into the standard that working group was drafting, and the work on that standard is complete, then removal would be appropriate. Regards, Chuck - Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 -Original Message- From: Simon Josefsson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 9:32 AM To: Powers Chuck-RXCP20 Cc: Stephan Wenger; IETF Discussion Subject: Re: Removal of IETF patent disclosures? By submitting a draft to the IETF, you (normally) give the IETF rights to build technology based on it. If an patent disclosure is related to a draft someone submits, and the draft expires and the disclosure is removed, someone else can pick up the draft and submit a new version. Not being able to read the original patent disclosure in this situation would be bad. Further, there is nothing in the IETF policies that permit removing patent disclosures today, so if you want to change the policy here I believe you will need to get consensus to revise the IETF patent policies. /Simon Powers Chuck-RXCP20 [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I think that Stephan raised some very good points as to why allowing some IPR disclosures to be removed actually makes sense. Since quite often IPR disclosures are made for a specific ID in a specific working group, if that WG ultimately does not choose that technology (and the ID expires), I am curious as to what the value would be of keeping that IPR disclosure on file forever? If narrowly worded (as many are), it would not be applicable to any other ID submission or working group, and would therefore have little use but to add to the growing list of disclosures in the IETF IPR database. I would be curious to hear the reasoning for keeping these on file, apart from 'historical record', since I am not convinced the IETF IPR database is the right place to hold onto IPR disclosures simply for historical purposes that only apply to technology that will never see the light of day in an IETF standard, since the IETF doesn't see any value in keeping the IDs that they applied to in the first place. Regards, Chuck - Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stephan Wenger Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 9:24 AM To: IETF Discussion Subject: Re: Removal of IETF patent disclosures? Hi all, Nokia is one of the companies which submitted a number of withdrawal requests for previous disclosures. In no case (that I'm aware of) our intention has been to sneak out of a licensing commitment. Instead, we submitted withdrawal requests with the intention to keep the IETF patent database a useful tool---to do our share of database cleanup, so to speak. For example, we removed disclosures where -the patent went away (e.g. an abandoned application with no intention to re-file the case) -the scope of protection changed in such a way that the previous disclosure became irrelevant, or -an I-D went away and, in our estimation, the protected technology has not been picked up in any other IETF document we are aware of. (If it were, we would submit another disclosure for the same patent, but against a different draft. This has happened once in case of Nokia). We believe that these actions have been of advantage to the transparency of the IETF patent system, and transparency is important. When writing transparency, I mean transparency to the technical IETF contributor, who typically has neither interest, nor the qualification, to accurately interpret the legalese of patent disclosures. (All too often guys just state there's a patent on this draft, because they found something in the tracker---and in some WG, in practice, that can kill
RE: Removal of IETF patent disclosures?
In general, not a bad approach. However, does a valid amendment include the statement this IPR declaration is now null and void, since the technology did not make it into the targeted standard? This would resolve the issue of having IPR declarations just hanging out there, for technology that never made it into a standard. Regards, Chuck - Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Hoffman Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 12:16 PM To: ietf@ietf.org Subject: Re: Removal of IETF patent disclosures? It seems like there is a lot of concern about removals, and some concern about original publication of spam, drivel, and duplicate notices. Here is a proposal for a way forward: 1) Original submissions to the IPR repository are moderated, but only to prevent publication of spam and drivel. If the moderator (who should probably be a NomCom-appointed person such as the IETF chair or IAB chair) sees what appears to be a duplicate notice, that person can ask the poster if they really meant to publish the duplicate notice; if so, it gets published. 2) Once published, a notice is never removed. A notice can, however, later be amended. Amendments are attached to the published notice. 3) All amendments that the moderator considers to come from the original poster or from the likely owner of the IPR in the posting are accepted. 4) Other amendments are moderated. The moderator should (other than in cases of spam or drivel) either post a relevant amendment or suggest to the amendment's proposer that the proposer file a different IPR statement that cross-references this on. 5) In case of dispute about posting an amendment, the moderator should make his/her own amendment summarizing the dispute. These are fairly easy to follow and give latitude to the moderator. Concerns about censorship or incompetence on the part of the moderator are dealt with fairly easily: the aggrieved party can send mail to the IETF mailing list. Thoughts? --Paul Hoffman, Director --VPN Consortium ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: authorizing subsequent use of contributions
I agree with John, and expect that if the IETF Trust will now be allowed to take an expired ID, and do with it want it wants outside of the standards process, the result will (appropriately) be to have more finely tuned IPR declarations, which make it clear that the declaration is targeted at the specific standard in question, and is not applicable beyond that, inside or outside of the IETF standardization process. As far as I can tell, there is, and should be, nothing that prohibits IPR holders from making such refined declarations, and such declarations will easily meet the requirements for being a valid IPR declaration to the IETF. IMO this simply underscores the valid separation of patent rights and copyright rights in the IETF process, that some still seem to be confused over. Regards, Chuck - Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John C Klensin Sent: Friday, August 15, 2008 12:23 PM To: Simon Josefsson Cc: ietf@ietf.org Subject: Re: authorizing subsequent use of contributions --On Friday, August 15, 2008 4:48 PM +0200 Simon Josefsson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: John C Klensin [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: However, the IPR WG, in its wisdom, has concluded, in some phrasing that was changed fairly late in the game, that the IETF Trust should get enough rights in I-Ds to authorize all sorts of subsequent uses of them and their content, with no time limit. You have claimed this before, but I don't understand it. RFC 2026 says that the IETF receives a fairly broad license to do anything it wants with all contributions, see section 10.3.1: I believe that, subject to the you can't really use this disclaimers allowed by 2026, the IETF has the right to do just about anything it wants or needs to do with text in an I-D, active or expired, as long as doing that is part of the standards process. I agree that 2026 is clear about that, as were precedents before it. And, referring to one of your earlier notes, I think that includes pulling text out of an I-D that has been expired for years and years and incorporating it into a new I-D, publishing it as an RFC, etc. I also believe it is absolutely necessary for the IETF to have those rights. I did not intend my note to say anything else and hope I've been consistent about that over the years. ... Is your objection that the Trust is now authorized to grant uses outside of the IETF process? I believe that there is nothing in 2026 that allows the IETF, ISOC, or the trust to grant any rights, or any sort, to anyone to do anything with text in I-Ds (or other contributions) outside of use _by the IETF_ (i.e., as part of the standards process). The ability of the Trust to grant such rights originates with assumptions about the Trust itself and, in detail, in the recent inbound and outbound rights documents. I believe that the approach taken in those documents wrt I-Ds, especially expired I-Ds, is wrong and that we will eventually regret it. YMMD and I am clearly in the minority on that subject. That said, because I believe the IETF has the absolute right to pick up prior I-D text at any point and reuse it, I believe that disclosure statements that were made while the I-D was active have to be retained for that long, i.e., to a good approximation of forever. Ted's comments about how meaningful those earlier disclosure statements are and for how long are very much relevant to this, but I don't think change the retention period. And, even if my no new disclosures for expired I-Ds proposal were adopted, I think it would be reasonable to permit comments that provided explanations about licensing or release status or forward pointers to disclosures associated with more recent or superceding documents. john ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: Removal of IETF patent disclosures?
I think that Stephan raised some very good points as to why allowing some IPR disclosures to be removed actually makes sense. Since quite often IPR disclosures are made for a specific ID in a specific working group, if that WG ultimately does not choose that technology (and the ID expires), I am curious as to what the value would be of keeping that IPR disclosure on file forever? If narrowly worded (as many are), it would not be applicable to any other ID submission or working group, and would therefore have little use but to add to the growing list of disclosures in the IETF IPR database. I would be curious to hear the reasoning for keeping these on file, apart from 'historical record', since I am not convinced the IETF IPR database is the right place to hold onto IPR disclosures simply for historical purposes that only apply to technology that will never see the light of day in an IETF standard, since the IETF doesn't see any value in keeping the IDs that they applied to in the first place. Regards, Chuck - Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stephan Wenger Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 9:24 AM To: IETF Discussion Subject: Re: Removal of IETF patent disclosures? Hi all, Nokia is one of the companies which submitted a number of withdrawal requests for previous disclosures. In no case (that I'm aware of) our intention has been to sneak out of a licensing commitment. Instead, we submitted withdrawal requests with the intention to keep the IETF patent database a useful tool---to do our share of database cleanup, so to speak. For example, we removed disclosures where -the patent went away (e.g. an abandoned application with no intention to re-file the case) -the scope of protection changed in such a way that the previous disclosure became irrelevant, or -an I-D went away and, in our estimation, the protected technology has not been picked up in any other IETF document we are aware of. (If it were, we would submit another disclosure for the same patent, but against a different draft. This has happened once in case of Nokia). We believe that these actions have been of advantage to the transparency of the IETF patent system, and transparency is important. When writing transparency, I mean transparency to the technical IETF contributor, who typically has neither interest, nor the qualification, to accurately interpret the legalese of patent disclosures. (All too often guys just state there's a patent on this draft, because they found something in the tracker---and in some WG, in practice, that can kill a draft.) We also think that in an organization like the IETF, where language and practice suggests the disclosure of (unstable) patent applications against (unstable) I-Ds, there is a need for a cleanup mechanism of some sort. This is in contrast to organizations where one needs to declare only once at least one of the documents is reasonably stable. I personally believe that the impact of a removal of a disclosure to a licensing promise is rather negligible. The paper-trail of a disclosure can quite easily be reconstructed during litigation, if a need arises. The IETF's patent database should focus on the practicalities required for IETF standardization only. My suggestion would be to either continue the current practice, or implement something along the following lines: -an invisible flag, under control of the discloser -an expert mode in the database, which provides the whole paper-trail, and -a standard mode which lists only the most recent update of a disclosure (or the information that the request has been flagged invisible by the submitter) Regards, Stephan On 8/14/08 12:25 AM, Simon Josefsson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Harald Tveit Alvestrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Simon Josefsson skrev: Brian E Carpenter [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I wasn't even aware, during my tenure as chair, that the 'remove' button existed. The only removals I recall, which may or may not be in the numbers Simon quoted, were completely bogus and nonsensical disclosures clearly filed by someone who was just fiddling around on the Web. Some of the disclosures that are now removed were certainly not bogus. For example, the patent license given in #833 was important input to a lengthy discussion relatively recently. definitely agree on that one for the record. OTOH, to give a counterexample, I don't think there's any value to the community to having both #941 and #942 on file - they're duplicates. Removing one out of two duplicates doesn't remove any patent-disclosure related information, so I don't think it is a good counter-example. If removals should be permitted, the reasons
RE: Removal of IETF patent disclosures?
John, Good point (and I agree with your concerns about letting the IETF Trust have perpetual rights to sublicense something that has expired, as far as the IETF standards process is concerned). However, unless I missed something, the IPR disclosures themselves would not be relevant to any other body to which the IETF Trust granted copyrights to, but only to the work done in the IETF. At least, this would most likely be the case for any IPR disclosure that was drafted by a competent attorney. Granting the IETF Trust the right to pass on copyrights to a contribution is not the same as making an IPR declaration that passes on to anyone, anywhere for any use of the patented technology in the contribution. Regards, Chuck - Chuck Powers, Motorola, Inc phone: 512-427-7261 mobile: 512-576-0008 -Original Message- From: John C Klensin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 10:34 AM To: Powers Chuck-RXCP20; Stephan Wenger; IETF Discussion Subject: RE: Removal of IETF patent disclosures? --On Thursday, August 14, 2008 11:15 AM -0400 Powers Chuck-RXCP20 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think that Stephan raised some very good points as to why allowing some IPR disclosures to be removed actually makes sense. Since quite often IPR disclosures are made for a specific ID in a specific working group, if that WG ultimately does not choose that technology (and the ID expires), I am curious as to what the value would be of keeping that IPR disclosure on file forever? If narrowly worded (as many are), it would not be applicable to any other ID submission or working group, and would therefore have little use but to add to the growing list of disclosures in the IETF IPR database. I would be curious to hear the reasoning for keeping these on file, apart from 'historical record', since I am not convinced the IETF IPR database is the right place to hold onto IPR disclosures simply for historical purposes that only apply to technology that will never see the light of day in an IETF standard, since the IETF doesn't see any value in keeping the IDs that they applied to in the first place. Chuck, As a long-term advocate of taking the provisions that I-Ds expire after six months --at least to the extent of having _all_ rights in them revert to the author(s)-- I think what you are saying above is profoundly sensible. However, the IPR WG, in its wisdom, has concluded, in some phrasing that was changed fairly late in the game, that the IETF Trust should get enough rights in I-Ds to authorize all sorts of subsequent uses of them and their content, with no time limit. That phrasing passed through IETF Last Call and IESG signoff and is the context in which the Trust is now writing rules. It seems to me that, if the IETF (through the Trust) is going to be in a position to grant rights to use material in I-Ds forever, and if rights to use code in I-Ds (even for the first time) don't expire after six months or some other closed period, then, logically, we are obligated to keep the IPR disclosures forever. I suppose that, if I were a paranoid lawyer (and IANAL, even if I'm paranoid about these sorts of things) and giving advice to a participant in the IETF, I'd recommend that an IPR disclosure be filed on every single I-D, indicating that any licenses I might grant were good for only six months after the posting of the last I-D in the relevant series unless it were approved for RFC publication. What that would do to the system we seem to be making for ourselves would be interesting, at least. john ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
RE: Experimental makes sense for tls-authz
Randy Presuhn wrote: Hi - The existence of IPR claims potentially relevant to the implementation of a specification has never been sufficient grounds to block the publication of that specification as an RFC. Given the unfortunate history of this work, publication of draft-housley-tls-authz-extns as experimental seems to be the most sensible path out of this mess. If the IPR terms are indeed so onerous as to preclude widespread implementation, as seems to be the concern of some, then it will simply gather dust with other experiments that didn't work out, and the open source community need not worry. If, on the other hand, this technology is so superior to anything the open source community can offer as an alternative, then Darwin will go to work. None of the recent argumentation has been technical. None of the recent argumentation has provided a convincing procedural reason to block publication of draft-housley-tls-authz-extns. Let's just hand it over to the RFC editor and be done with it. Randy +1 If there is a technical reason for opposing the publication of this as an Experimental RFC, please make that argument. Otherwise, let the Experimental RFC track do what it was designed to do, and determine what interest (if any) there is in this technology in the industry. regards, Chuck ___ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
