SRP Patch Integration?

[William R. Knox]

On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Theo de Raadt wrote:

> Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 11:36:19 -0700
> From: Theo de Raadt <deraadt at cvs.openbsd.org>
> To: Tom Wu <tom at arcot.com>
> Cc: Niels Provos <provos at citi.umich.edu>, openssh-unix-dev at mindrot.org,
>      Markus.Friedl at informatik.uni-erlangen.de, deraadt at openbsd.org
> Subject: Re: SRP Patch Integration?
>
...
>
> > I'd like to see if Stanford
> > can be persuaded to issue a similar statement, since it appears to offer
> > you sufficient assurance.
>
> Simple.  Have them drop the patent, make it free.
>
> Standards should not contain references to patents.  I am firm.  It is
> why we are fighting Cisco in the VRRP space as well.
>
...

Now, I am not a lawyer (which means I am going to try and think poorly
like one, I know), but how is having a patent at all related to whether or
not something is free? Isn't that a licensing issue, which is, I thought,
entirely separate from a patent? Doesn't a patent just effectively
register an idea with the federal government and prevent other people from
claiming that they had the same idea first? Doesn't this then prevent
other people from coming in and charging other people for something which
you thought up and which you were going to allow people to use for free?

Just my two cents, for what it's worth (two cents, I guess).

			Bill Knox
			Senior Operating Systems Programmer/Analyst
			The MITRE Corporation