Re: [TLS] Proto write-up for TLS exporter

[Simon Josefsson <simon at josefsson.org>]

Paul Hoffman <paul.hoffman at vpnc.org> writes:

> At 7:28 PM +0200 5/13/09, Simon Josefsson wrote:
>>Paul Hoffman <paul.hoffman at vpnc.org> writes:
>>
>>> At 1:58 PM +0200 5/13/09, Simon Josefsson wrote:
>>>>I don't support publishing tls-extractor on the standards track as long
>> >>as there are unclear patent threat against it and no acceptable free
>> >>software compatible patent license is available.
>>>
>>> This is absurd and obstructionist. You are saying that if anyone
>>> publishes an IPR statement about a work in progress, they can stop
>>> that document from becoming a standard.
>>
>>I'm absolutely not saying that.  Please re-read what I wrote.
>
> You are and I did, carefully.
>
> You know full well that any IPR statement in the IETF can be
> considered an "unclear patent threat" by many people. Further, you
> know that the phrase "no acceptable free software compatible patent
> license" is unclear to many IETF participants, much less to many
> patent owners.
>
> Given your two restrictions, I believe my statement is true.

Those two restrictions are something you invented, they are not in what
I wrote and they are not what I intended.  Conveniently, the
restrictions you carefully chose made your statement true.  The patent
threat and patent license is unclear _to me_ and _right now_.  That is
sufficient for me to not support publishing the document at this point.

WG's should discuss patent disclaimers and decide whether to live with
the problem or not.  That discussion had not taken place for
tls-extractor before the proto-writeup was posted.  I'm hoping the
discussion will provide more grounds to base the decision on.

The IETF needs to carefully weight patent threats when considering
standardization.  I believe implying that such considerations are
obstructions hurt the credibility of the IETF as a standardization body
for the Internet.

/Simon