RE: IETF Patent policy (was RE: IETF Trust FAQ)

[Ted Hardie <hardie at qualcomm.com>]

At 12:49 PM -0800 1/17/07, Lawrence Rosen wrote:
>
>But my earlier point was broader than that even: This proposed IETF policy
>doesn't even work for private companies seeking proprietary solutions. There
>is no advantage to participate in setting industry standards that come with
>no promise even of RAND patent licenses, much less free ones.

Participating means you have a say in what the standards say, including
whether its technology requires adhering to a license or not.

The bulk of your argument boils down to:  we shouldn't trust those people
in the working group to make the right decision, despite them having
the context, knowing the alternatives, and having to live with the
results.  We should make it once, for them, and deal only with the
people who liked that decision enough to stick around.

That works in some contexts, but the Internet can't fork and remain
valuable.  Sticking to open participation means the largest group of people
can participate whenever they care to, and it is the right way to go here.

If you're going to talk about public trusts, you should learn to trust
the public.  Tying the hands of those who want to participate and
will live with the results isn't the right way to go.  If history is a
guide, WGs will continue to choose unencumbered technology the
great majority of the time, and when they do not it will be for reasons
grounded in the context of the work of the group's work, not in abstract
statements about what generality is better or worse.

			Ted Hardie



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