Different groups participate in the success of the internet in different ways.
I have no objection to Debian, Apache, Nortel, or Cisco fighting patents which they believe hurt the internet.
That fight is not the job the IETF has demonstrated skill at, or interest in.
It is not an end-run of the IETF for another organization to do something the IETF is not interested in doing.
It is not a threat to the internet or the IETF for other organizations to help seek the best interest of the internet. In fact it is necessary.
And I personally would be very unhappy if the IETF were dragged into the philosophical and legal argument as to whether patents qua patents (whether restricted to software or all inventsion) are a good idea, a bad idea, a good idea gone bad, or some other view. The IETF is not the forum for promoting or advancing such views.
Yours, Joel M. Halpern
At 10:59 AM 10/21/2004 -0400, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
Brian E Carpenter <brc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>: > I don't think we can require the IESG to negotiate anything. There are > all kinds of legal issues there. To my knowledge, both WGs and the IESG > do think carefully about this, but often conclude that the default IETF > conditions (RAND) are realistic and acceptable.
If IETF continues to believe this, groups like Apache and Debian will continue to have to end-run IETF by doing the job of defending the Internet commons that IETF is abdicating, and IETF's authority will evaporate.
It is not 1982 or even 1992 any more. Conditions have changed dramatically. I would hate to see IETF dwindle into irrelevance, but that is exactly where statements like this are pointing. -- <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a>
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