Thierry Moreau <thierry.moreau@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > Simon Josefsson wrote: > >> >> When evaluating whether to implement a particular technology, you need >> to evaluate all the risks. The text of patent (applications) helps in >> the evaluation. My point is that the actions of patent holders is >> significantly more relevant. >> > > Dear Simon: > > Interesting, and completely new to me. > > Do you have any guidelines / methodology / evaluation criteria / > sources of precedents or any other "sources of law"? According to > those, one could turn emprircal-observations-of-patent-holder-actions > into a) an evaluation whether to implement and/or b) an evaluation > whether to adopt as an IETF document (standards track / informational > / experimental). > > Perhaps there is some form of non written IPR etiquette. See RFC 3669, it contains good discussion and interesting examples. The evaluation done in the examples of RFC 3669 does not generally seem to be of what's in the actual patent text. Instead people have evaluated the actions taken (or not taken) by patent holders. This re-inforces my point. > Perhaps you have an intuitive talent at this type of analysis and you > are the Oracle in the present instance, i.e. you made the evaluation > and then the FSF started its campaign. Heh. I have been careful to avoid reading any patent text or make any judgement of the patent disclaimer and licensing conditions. That is not my field of expertise. I do not have any influence over what the FSF does or decides here. One person can't reliable make a decision like this, it needs to be discussed by the community and people can provide their thoughts on the topic. Eventually, after hearing what people have said, everyone can form their own opinion of the situation. This is what I've done, and I have also made my opinion publicly known in this discussion. That doesn't mean I cannot be convinced otherwise. There are two things I believe are critical in this discussion: 1) how widely the patent filer believes their patent applies, and 2) the licensing conditions offered by the patent filer. Item 2) has apparently been evaluated by the FSF and they found that the conditions doesn't allow wide use of implementations. Reading the patent disclaimer myself, I don't see anything that invalidates this evaluation, and I see things that re-inforce the evaluation. The FSF has access to legal aid and has a track record in working in this area. Some engineers, like Pasi and Sam seems to believe the opposite. However, the FSF takes the legal risk if I re-add the tls-authz implementation to GnuTLS. So to me the FSFs evaluation carry more weight. Item 1) is, alas, difficult to judge without the vulcan mind melt, but it is warranted to be conservative. The licensing conditions demanded for certain uses also gives some indication of the scope of the perceived applicability. As far as I can tell, the simplest approach to resolve the problem would be to offer the technology for free use to anyone without limitation. This solves item 2) and makes the more difficult to judge item 1) irrelevant. /Simon _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf