From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com>
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 94 10:34:32 PST
To: "L. Todd Masco" <cactus@hks.net>
Subject: Re: Patents to be placed in PD
In-Reply-To: <199412060758.CAA07429@bb.hks.net>
Message-ID: <9412061833.AA07377@snark.imsi.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



"L. Todd Masco" says:
> This appeared on the IPSEC list (Hooray!).
> jwlowe@IBM followed up by announce the dedication of IBM's patent
> #5,148,479 to the public.
> 
> Is this the apocalypse or something?  Never have I seen such signs
> of rationality in companies of this size.  

This was caused by tremendous pressure and by Sun being forced into a
similar move earlier in the day. It was the feeling of many members of
the IETF working group that the MKMP proposal from IBM could not be
considered without the patents being fixed up. Similarly, it was the
feeling of the group that SKIP from Sun was unacceptable without the
patents being fixed. Sun announced low cost licenses which were still
unacceptable. IBM announced free licences. Sun announced that the
patents would be assigned to the public domain. IBM announced the same
four hours later.

Your faithful IETF correspondant...

.pm