> From: "Eric S. Raymond" <esr@xxxxxxxxxxx> > Let's put an end to these far-reaching interpretations of > "representation", which are a product of Mr. Schryer's fevered brain > overinterpreting my original statement. > > Originally, somebody asked that the open-source community get its act together > about what acceptable patent-license terms would be. > > I said this: if IETF wants to know what form of patent license will be > acceptable to the open-source community, the people to ask are Richard > Stallman (representing FSF) and myself (representing OSI). > > Between us (and especially if we agree), I believe we can speak *with > regard to this question* for 95% of the open-source community. This > does not make either of us power-mad dictators intent on domination, > just most peoples' recognized experts on what constitutes an > acceptable open-source license. > > If either Mr. Schryer or yourself chooses not to be considered part > of that "most people", fine -- the fact remains there are an awful damn lot > of developers expecting RMS and myself to *do* *this* *job* so they don't > have to. If it existed, that job would conflict with the way the IETF works. No contributor to an IETF WG or mailing list is supposed be presenting anything but personal opinions. When Mr. Raymond writes here about acceptable patent-license terms, his views get careful reading, but not because he represents anyone but himself. If the IETF were to make an exception and count votes on this issue, then it should weight votes based on relevant open source, since concerns about patents on parsing C matter less to the IETF than patents on address prefix lookups and compression. However, any kind of voting would be bad. More and larger (including commercial) organizations would declare themselves champions of open source and demand votes in proportion to their programmers, customers, or market shares. > Cripes. It'd be easier trying to serve a gang of baboons, sometimes... Many people besides baboons and refuseniks consider it unseemly to demand gratitude for unwanted gifts, and not only because some political activites are painfully obvious and familiar. Being recognized as the official spokesman for the open source community by the IETF would help Mr. Raymond's efforts to get the world to believe the phrase "open source community" is not silly nonsense like "netizen," that it has spokesmen, and that he is one. Vernon Schryver vjs@xxxxxxxxxxxx P.S. I don't entirely agree with Mr. Vixie's patent suggestion. Requiring that WG participants make such disclosures would be very nice in theory, but seems as realistic as the IETF simply declaring that it has opted-out of the patent extortion game. However, that's all been said before more than once. P.P.S. I think this started with concerns about quoting parts of RFCs. Is there more fire than smoke there? _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf