> ... we should prefer technology which will be available > royalty-free, but that's not current policy Whose policy? Some WGs have a policy (or are actually chartered) to develop deployable protocols. Where a legal issue would make a protocol non-deployable, we have to look elsewhere. (Of course, that only applies to parts of the IETF -- maybe one reason why an IETF-wide policy may be harder to come up with than e.g. in the W3C.) Oh, and I would rather avoid the confusing term royalty-free. Imagine a "technology" that is licensed royalty-free to end-users (i.e., every single user has to pay a lawyer to get a license contract in place, which then is royalty-free). Royalty-free, but useless. Lawyer-free/paperwork-free would be the more useful criterion. Gruesse, Carsten