Re: iSCSI: PAK: an alternative to SRP and DH-CHAP

[Bill Studenmund <wrstuden@wasabisystems.com>]

On Mon, 29 Apr 2002, Philip MacKenzie wrote:

> > I don't see how iSCSI with PAK will fare any different. Yes, PAK so far
> > seems better in that it's more of a one-stop licensor (so far), but it's
> > still heavy-enough IPR to cause problems. In fact, it's a bit worse in
> > that here the patent holder wants licensing fees, whereas Stanford, for
> > SRP, doesn't. :-|
>
> > Thoughts?
>
> I will bring up the issue of non-commercial vendors
> with our licensing folks, and see what can be done.

Well, that doesn't quite cut it. What about folks who want to make
(commercial) products based on a non-commercial OS? :-) One of the things
NetBSD strives for (and I think all the other *BSDs do too) is to permit
*any* vendor to use NetBSD for whatever s/he wants, without encumbrance.
Having to go to Lucent (or Phoenix) and pay licensing fees goes against
that.

I think the only thing which will really work is a license like Stanford
has for SRP. And Lucent doesn't seem interested in such a thing.

> As to SRP, I think the problem was that there were 3 patents
> that were thought may apply -  from Lucent, Phoenix, and Stanford.
> At least 2 of those places would probably want licensing fees.

The problem was that there were >0 places wanting fees. :-)

Take care,

Bill