On Fri, Jun 03, 2016 at 07:11:56PM +0200, Christopher Wilkinson wrote:
Well actually, most of the IETF RFCs, were they to be in the commercial domain, would be assimilated to patents.
Were my grandmother to have wheels, she'd be a bus? I don't know how that counter-factual "were they to be in the commercial domain" helps us think even a little bit sensibly about this. The point of standards is interoperability. My employer doesn't donate my time to the IETF because it's being nice. It wants the Internet to work, and "working" on a network of networks requires open standards that people voluntarily adopt. That's what it means to have an internet.
Even the computer programs (that could be protected by copyright subject to the interfaces exception) would, in the US, be protectable by patents. Correct?
There is a big difference between standards and programs. But in fact, the IETF has a policy about included code snippets in IETF documents. They're required to have what free software people would regard as a permissive free license (basically BSD-like). I hope that helps, though I'm not totally sure I see why it's relevant to this list or this topic. Best regards, A -- Andrew Sullivan ajs@anvilwalrusden.com