Re: SRP in OpenSSH draft protocol spec

[Bill Sommerfeld <sommerfeld%east.sun.com@localhost>]

Ok, I think this issue has been adequately covered here.  .

To summarize briefly:

The IETF process requires prompt public disclosure of any IPR issues
connected to a technology.  This appears to have happened.

The WG then gets to decide (by the usual rough consensus) whether the
IPR presents an obstacle to adoption of the technology as a standard.

So, in order to get adoption by the WG, the IPR owner needs to
convince the members of the WG that any IPR issues will not be an
obstacle to implementation/deployment/... otherwise, the path of least
resistance is to find another technology which is less encumbered or
unencumbered.

Note that there is at least one non-patented technology which is a
possible alternative to SRP; see draft-perlman-strong-cred-00.txt.
(affiliation disclaimer: Radia Perlman and I both work for Sun, though
we are in completely different divisions of the company).

Anyhow, it appears that the existing IPR statement from Tom Wu is not
sufficient for (at least) Ran, but one from the Stanford OTL might
be..  Let's wait and see what the revised IPR statement from Stanford
says.

					- Bill