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

[Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos <nmav at gnutls.org>]

On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 10:54 PM, Paul Hoffman <paul.hoffman at vpnc.org> wrote:

>> 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.
>
> That's not what you said.
>
> Further, it is still absurd and obstructionist to say that a document cannot be published on standards track as long as someone thinks it has one or more "unclear patent threat against it". Anyone can write an IPR statement that is unclear to someone.

As far as I remember this was the consensus of this WG for the TLS-SRP
now informational RFC. Once someone submitted an unclear patent thread
against it, the WG decided not to move forward as a standards track,
rather as informational.

http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/tls/current/msg01215.html

>>WG's should discuss patent disclaimers and decide whether to live with
>>the problem or not.
> Sure. However, such discussions should not hinge on whether anyone finds the threat unclear. Nor should they hinge on how different people interpret acceptable free software compatible patent license".

I do not understand the comments about. If it is some rant on free
software I do not bother even discussing them.

>>The IETF needs to carefully weight patent threats when considering
>>standardization.
>
> No, we don't. You have been repeatedly on the losing side of this discussion in the IPR WG. Bringing it up in every WG you follow does not change that fact.

Nevertheless I see no reason not to bring it up if he thinks it the
problem is there. .

regards,
Nikos