Marshall Rose wrote: > > As I recall, RAND was explicitly selected over RF because > there are and > > will be technologies that are interesting to incorporate in a > > system-wide standard approach, and forcing RF terms would > automatically > > exclude those. There is enough of a bias in the > participants toward RF > > when available, that explicit language requiring it adds no > value and in > > some cases actually subtracts value from the process of achieving > > consensus. > > > > If what you are asking for is that for every proposal / i-d > that shows > > up in the IETF, the IPR holder is automatically required to > provide an > > RF license, you really don't understand the reason people > bother with > > patents to begin with. > > tony - i don't find your last paragraph to be particularly > "helpful". a reasoned argument can be made that patents and > community standards are incompatible. a rigorous study of > the US patent system indicates that the founders introduced > the system in order to serve the public good, by encouraging > innovation, by granting limited monopolies on inventions. it > is unclear if that system is particularly compatible with > community-based approaches such as the IETF where, by > definition, the output is not monopolized. Clearly from the responses I didn't make my point in that last paragraph. The original note mentioned VRRP specifically, and in that case the IPR holder didn't bring the proposal to the IETF. The way I read that note, the Free Software community believes that the IPR holder should be required to provide RF terms when someone proposes a similar technology for standardization. > > with respect to your first paragraph, i note that if > technology companies see value in participating in the > standards process, then perhaps it is not unreasonable to > suggest that the IETF consider only RF stuff, and then let > the various IPR stakeholders decide whether the trade-off is > worth it... in other words, if someone has some whizbang > technology, and if they want the imprimatur of a community > such as the IETF, then they can decide for themselves whether > to RF it. if not, they are perfectly free to pursue a > proprietary market strategy. In general I agree for the case where the IPR holder brings the technology for standardization. In the case where a proposal shows up which the group thinks is technically the right direction, but a 3rd party holds IPR, we can't require RF, but can require the WG demonstrate that RAND is functional. > > for myself, i take no position on the merits of the two kinds > of licensing; rather, i merely note that the issue is > somewhat more subtle than first glance. Subtle enough that a quick paragraph is easily misread. :) Tony