Subject: IETF standards should not be patent-encumbered

From: Robinson Tryon <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:13:32 -0500

Dear IETF,

I just heard news that the IETF is in the process of approving a
standard for TLS authorization (draft-housley-tls-authz-extns-07.txt)
that includes mechanisms which may be covered under a patent owned by
RedPhone Security. RedPhone Security has not provided a royalty-free
license to this patent to all users, and without such a license, I do
not believe that Free Software operating systems such as GNU/Linux
will be able to include code implementing this proposed standard
without running the risk of being sued.

As the "Overview" page on the IETF website states, "The Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a large open international
community...concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture
and the smooth operation of the Internet. It is open to any interested
individual." I thank you for the invitation to participate in the
IETF, and I wholeheartedly agree that we should all work together for
the overall "smooth operation of the Internet". Providing open
standards free of legal barriers to implementation is what made the
Internet the open, accessible network that we all enjoy today.

If you reject the TLS authorization proposal now and tell RedPhone
Security that their licensing terms aren't open enough, one of two
things will happen:
1) They provide a royalty-free license for everyone, making it
possible for this draft to become an open standard.
2) They don't provide such a royalty-free license, and the IETF avoids
publishing a "standard" that is not accessible to all users on the
Internet.

This seems like a win/win situation. What do you think?

As I mentioned above, I really am impressed that the IETF is "open to
any interested individual." There are too many standards organizations
that are only accessible to large groups and large companies armed
with teams of lawyers and endless pools of time and money. Please
continue to draft and approve open standards that everyone can
implement without fear of legal attack, and please reject proposals
that rely on patent-encumbered methods. Above all else, please keep
the Internet, like the IETF, open to any interested individual.

Sincerely,
-- Robinson Tryon