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The recent threads about draft-housley-tls-authz have taught
me something I didn't know about IETF, and I don't like what I've learned. There are, it appears, many types of IETF RFCs, some which
are intended to be called "Internet standards" and others which bear
other embedded labels and descriptions in their boilerplate text that are
merely "experimental" or "informational" or perhaps simply "proposed
standard". One contributor here described the RFC series as "a repository
of technical information [that] will be around when I am no longer around."
The world is now full of standards organizations that treat
their works as more significant than merely "technical information." Why
do we need IETF for that purpose? If all we need is a repository of technical
information, let's just ask Google and Yahoo to build it for us. Maybe our
Internet standards should instead be created in an organized body that pays
serious attention to the ability of the wide world to implement those standards
without patent encumbrances. But even if IETF isn't willing to amend its patent policy
that far—and most SDOs still aren't, unfortunately—at the very
least we should take our work seriously. When someone proposes a serious RFC,
we should demand that the water around that RFC be swept for mines—especially
*disclosed* patent mines that any
serious sailor would want to understand first. If IETF isn't willing to be that serious, maybe we should
recommend that our work go to standards organizations that do care? As far as
my time to volunteer for a better Internet, there are far better ways to do it
than listening here to proposals that are merely "technical
information." At the very least, separate that into a different list than
IETF.org so I know what to ignore! By the way, many of the same companies and individuals who
are involved here in IETF are also active participants in W3C, OASIS, and the new
Open Web Foundation, all of which organizations pay more attention to patents
and the concept of "open standards" than what IETF seems to be doing
here. So let's not be disingenuous, please. Almost everyone here has previous
experience doing this the right way. /Larry Lawrence Rosen Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a technology law firm (www.rosenlaw.com) 3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482 707-485-1242 * cell: 707-478-8932 * fax: 707-485-1243 Skype: LawrenceRosen |
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