On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 10:35:20PM -0400, Joe Abley <jabley@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote a message of 31 lines which said: > 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 The IETF has no such power: no one is forced to follow the RFC and no one is forced to follow them correctly. This limit of the IETF process is well-known and that's why I simply do not understand the IPR WG frenzy to add new unenforceable rules. > It's no use to me if someone sells a product that claims to support > "SMTP" That's trademark protection and it was never considered seriously by the IPR WG. This WG, instead, tried to prevent people from reusing RFC but did absolutely nothing to guard against an attack such as the one you describe. (To create a rogue "SMTP" protocol, you do not need to modify a RFC.) > The point you made about code is surely related to *implementation*, > not *specification*. No, no, Lawrence was talking about the new rules that treat separately code and text in a RFC. (Many RFC have code and, under the current rule, you cannot, in theory, extract it and reuse it in free software.) _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf