Subject: RE: why to contact the IETF

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:24:41 -0500 (EST)

> From: "Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]>

    > The result of the FSF campaign has been to raise a legal concern
    > obviously important to many of us: Will users of the proposed IETF TLS
    > specification require patent licenses from RedPhone to use such
    > implementations in the US or elsewhere?

That point could have been raised _much_ more efficiently with a single email
message from someone such as yourself.

    > I don't yet know the answer to this question. Does anyone here?

I'm not sure I'd really believe any determination short of a court's anyway -
attorneys can advise, but until the proverbial butcher-baker-candlestickmaker
get their say after a trial, it's got an element of coin-toss to it, no?

    > If the TLS specification really is patent-encumbered, in the
    > professional view of experts who have reason to understand the details,
    > my vote here and those of many FSF members and FOSS advocates too will
    > be to have nothing more to do with it.

Taking no strong position on this particular specification (which is not in my
area of interest), but, as a general observation, nothing says anyone has to
use any particular IETF specification. If you don't want to mess with a
potential patent hassle, just don't use it.

The IETF is just a place to create standards in an open way, and it seems
there is some open community of experts interested in this area who seem to
have determined that the advantages of using an encumbered solution here
outweigh the disadvantages.

An effective critique of that judgement _does not_ mean just saying
'encumbered technology is bad', because most of us already agree with that
general statement. One would have to understand the details of why they felt
that that the advantages of using this particular encumbered solution
outweighed the obvious disadvantages, and show where the problem with that
reasoning was.

Alternatively, if there are a community of people who see a need, and don't
like using a patent-encumbered solution, they can create an alternative not so
hampered - and the IETF would, I would expect, be happy to afford them an open
forum to do so.

	Noel

---

From: Marshall Eubanks <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:33:39 -0500

> get their say after a trial, it's got an element of coin-toss to it,  

In my experience, attorneys will almost never give hard answers to  
questions like this. And it
typically takes a few million dollars in coins to make a toss.

Regards
Marshall

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---

From: "Lawrence Rosen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:57:15 -0800

> get their say after a trial, it's got an element of coin-toss to it, no?

I respond only to this specific point. Life itself has an element of
coin-toss to it. That should not discourage us from obtaining expert
technical and legal (and medical, etc.) opinions from people who can and
will provide them. 

Many times engineers, and attorneys, and doctors, recommend actions that
leave a coin toss ahead. It is often better to gamble with their advice than
without it.

/Larry