[ih] ppp - was Re: "The Great Debate"

[Frank Kastenholz]

> On Apr 30, 2026, at 8:12 AM, Scott Bradner via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On Apr 30, 2026, at 12:58 AM, Brian E Carpenter via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>> 
> ...
> 
>> The PPP WG submitted PPP Compression over a year ago...."
>> 
>> This was all about IPR claims by a large company. I daresay it was one of the topics during the fine IAB dinner in Stockholm. The IETF hadn't yet figured out how to deal with contentious IPR claims. I think we do better now.
> 
> The issue with ppp compression that Brian refers to was that Motorola 
> notified the IETF that ppp compression (then an ID) infringed on some of their patents.
> At the time the standards process (RFC 1602) required that a patent holder publish a 
> license for any patent they claimed impacted an IETF specification - Motorola 
> ignored all requests for them to do so.  
> 
> Thus, the publication of ppp compression (and encryption) as RFCs was blocked.
> 
> This stayed the case until Jon Postel published RFC 1871 - "Addendum to RFC 1602 
> -- Variance Procedure"
> 
> After which Frank Kastenholz, with proper IESG & IETF review,  published RFC 1915 
> "Variance for The PPP Compression Control Protocol and The PPP Encryption 
> Control Protocol" which freed up ppp to get published 
> 
> The whole story is explained in RFC 1915
> 
> it was quite a pain at the time!

"Ditto"

And, if I recall, besides being a clear case of IETF-sclerosis, the
PPP compression and encryption issue was a driving force for 
developing RFC1871 and other efforts to make the process
more efficient.

Frank (Internet AD at the time)

> 
> Scott  (IESG at the time)
> 
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