Does being an RFC mean anything?

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On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 7:54 PM, TSG <tglassey@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Lawrence Rosen wrote:

Because Larry - many of those here owe their ongoing $$$ livelihood to the lie the IETF has become. And so what you are suggesting is increasing the rolls of the unemployed by adding these individuals who's whole existence is the IETF. Its also these people in my opinion that make the IETF the laughingstock its become as you so rights notice that RFC's and the process for creating standards has degraded into a model where there really is no standard.

I agree.  I also remember over the years that many voices warned this was coming.  I heard them.  Did anyone else?

cheers
joe baptista

 


Just my two cents

Todd Glassey

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 <http://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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Joe Baptista
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