Re: [Internet-Drafts@ietf.org: I-D ACTION:draft-bradner-rfc-extracts-00.txt]

[Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com>]

MJ Ray <mjr@dsl.pipex.com> writes:

> Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote:
>> The fact that he's even presenting this tired old argument means that
>> either nobody is competently presenting the arguments for freeing of
>> standards documents, or the arguments aren't being heard ...
>
> Thank you for writing a rebuttal, Glenn. I agree with your
> points, but I'm unable to write my own full reply because I
> must now go run my blood through a heat exchanger to stop it
> boiling. This laughable IETF draft not only refuses to grant
> any permission to modify but misrepresents most of the arguments
> for and against that grant!
>
> For example, it claims that some "open source community" wants
> unrestricted permission to modify, but doesn't give a reference
> for the claims. A quick look at the mail archive referenced
> elsewhere finds people claiming the exact opposite. EONCRACK?
>
> I thank Scott Bradner for providing such an excellent example why
> IETF should not be the only way to develop RFC-based standards and
> why we should have *no faith* in claims they represent people like
> us in the United Nations Working Group on Internet Governance, to
> which they were appointed by distortion and slight of hand.

Please explain to them why their behavior frustrate the Debian
community.  (But stop your blood from boiling first...)

Don't attribute to malice, what can be explained by ignorance, and all
that.

Some highly involved people in the IETF IPR WG have claimed they were
not aware of the problems the IETF legal conditions create for the
free software community.  Since RFC have not been included in Debian
for a long time (forever?), I had assumed that this had been discussed
with the IETF earlier.  Given the ignorance, that may not have been
the case.  (More information on that would be useful, btw.)

If we explain the problem to the IPR WG, and they pursue similar poor
conditions, it will become clear that the IETF do not care about the
free software community.  Then we can formalize our own
standardization mechanism, without feeling a moral commitment to
sharing the work with the IETF.

Thanks,
Simon