On 17 Sep 2008, at 18:42, Lawrence Rosen wrote: > Of course none of the SDOs that I work with want to see incompatible > versions. But this turns the issue on its head. Open source and open > standards deal with the freedom to do things, even though we might > discourage people to take us up on that offer of freedom. I have not followed this thread wherever it originated, and I have never been so much as tempted to read the IPR wg archives. But I'm going to reply anyway, in the grand tradition of this list. I think the *whole point* of a standard is to restrict how things are done, in order to promote interoperability. Complaining about such restrictions makes no sense to me if interop is a desired goal (and if it's not, surely we can all go home). It's no use to me if someone sells a product that claims to support "SMTP" if it turns out that the SMTP in question has been modified, replacing HELO with GDAY or some other nonsense that stops "SMTP" talking to "SMTP". The point you made about code is surely related to *implementation*, not *specification*. Joe _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf