Re: [idn] Internet Draft DNSII Protocol

[RJ Atkinson <rja@inet.org>]

	An observation about patents.  

	Speaking for myself only, I will prefer a sufficient and 
sub-optimal --  but not patented (or no licence required if patented, 
as some  other firms have done with other IETF standards), 
over any proposal that is patented and requires one to obtain 
a licence (and/or pay a fee).  My guess is that more than one 
proposal will be at least sufficiently functional to be a plausible
choice for the standard.  IETF is historically extremely unlikely
to agree to standardise a technology that requires payment of
any fee -- the only examples I have seen are RSA and D-H for
which no possible alternative was known in the published literature.
The DNSSEC work was redone to reduce its patent licencing exposure
from the original approach, for example.

	People making proposals might want to consider that the
chance of their proposal being accepted as the standard is likely
MUCH higher if there are no patent (or other intellectual property)
hassles associated with their proposal.

	Just 2 cents from the peanut gallery.

Ran
rja@inet.org