Hi, I'm not sure royalties are the *least* of out problems, but I certainly agree with Stephan that annoyances go further than just royalties. I understand that BCP79 restricts what we can say about that in the charter, but at least mentioning the problem as Stephan suggests is a good idea IMO. In some sense, this is again part of the "making it easy to redistribute". Jean-Marc Stephan Wenger wrote: > Hi, > > Russ' language is an improvement. But let's not forget that there are > encumbrances that have nothing to do with paying royalties, but are equally > problematic from an adoption viewpoint. Examples: > > 1. Co-marketing requirement: need to put a logo of the rightholder company > on one's products acknowledging using the protected technology. > 2. Unreasonable (from the viewpoint of the adopter) reciprocity > requirements: one of many examples would be "if you use this technology, you > agree not to assert, against me or my customers, any of your patents. > Otherwise your license terminates.". > 3. Requirement for a "postcard license". Such a requirement may rule out > open source implementations under certain open source licenses. > > I believe strongly that a charter that discusses IPR issues should mention > at least those three aspects, and/or provide sufficiently vague language to > allow for an appropriate reaction to those and other encumbrances that may > show up. > > Royalties are the least of our problems. > > Regards, > Stephan > > Disclaimer: I have clients that would have problems with all three > encumbrances mentioned above. > > > > > > On 1/7/10 11:08 AM, "Peter Saint-Andre" <stpeter@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> On 1/7/10 9:46 AM, Russ Housley wrote: >>> Andy: >>> >>>>> Although this preference cannot guarantee that the working >>>>> group will produce an unencumbered codec, the working group shall >>>>> attempt to adhere to the spirit of BCP 79. This preference does not >>>>> explicitly rule out the possibility of adapting encumbered technologies; >>>>> such decisions will be made in accordance with the rough consensus of >>>>> the working group. >>>> I appreciate the potential difficulty of guaranteeing the unencumbered >>>> status of any output of this group. However, I would like this >>>> statement to >>>> be stronger, saying that this group will only produce a new codec if >>>> it is >>>> strongly believed by WG rough consensus to either be unencumbered, >>>> or freely licensed by the IPR holder(s), if any. >>> I do not think that anyone wants the outcome to be yet another >>> encumbered codec. I think these words are trying to say what you want, >>> but they are also trying to be realistic. >>> >>> Does the following text strike a better balance? >>> >>> Although this preference cannot guarantee that the working >>> group will produce an unencumbered codec, the working group shall >>> follow BCP 79, and adhere to the spirit of BCP 79. The working >>> group cannot explicitly rule out the possibility of adapting >>> encumbered technologies; however, the working group will try to >>> avoid encumbered technologies that require royalties. >> That seems reasonable. Although I was only the BoF co-chair, I'll >> volunteer to hold the pen on edits to the proposed charter. >> >> Peter > > > _______________________________________________ > codec mailing list > codec@xxxxxxxx > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/codec _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf