At 02:58 PM 5/29/02 -0700, Dave Crocker wrote: >At 09:10 PM 5/29/2002 +0100, Graham Klyne wrote: >>At 08:53 AM 5/29/02 -0700, Dave Crocker wrote: >>> Certainly we do not have to worry about whether there is >>> sufficient community interest in IPR. What we do not have a good sense >>> of, perhaps, is what problems need to be resolved. >> >>How do we best approach the design of Internet technologies so that >>IPR-related obstructions to their deployment will be minimized? > >Excellent question. > >However... > >It is not clear that an entire week of discussion would be fruitful for >that sort of deep and broad requirement for substantial process and >concept invention, nevermind a couple of hours at the end of a long >work-week, with little group preparation. Of course, but I didn't want to hog the mailing list ;-) I was trying to follow your lead and focus on the real issue rather than wandering in the woods hand-wringing about the process for fixing an unspecified problem. We all know there's an IPR problem facing Internet development, don't we? But do we know (or, more importantly, agree) what the problem actually is? Or are? So starting from the question above, I would go on to ask: - do we agree what constitutes IPR for the purpose of this debate? - what are the demonstrable cases of IPR obstructing Internet technology deployment? Looking for reasonably solid evidence here, not just hand-waving vaguenesses. - are there any demonstrable cases of IPR actually promoting the deployment of new Internet technology? - can we identify (and agree) a "top N" problems that need fixing (for some small N)? - can we identify (and agree) things that we definitely do not want to change? - what specialist legal input do we need to properly understand the identified problems? Maybe addressing such questions would go the same way as all other debates on the topic. But if we don't try to focus we'll never know. I was trying to support your call, which I understood to be for such focus. #g ------------------- Graham Klyne <GK@NineByNine.org>