"In this case, it's the normally sane Internet
Engineering Task Force that wants to do something really daft. The
FSF explains:
""Last January, the Free Software Foundation issued an alert to
efforts at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to sneak a
patent-encumbered standard for "TLS authorization" through a
back-door approval process that was referenced as "experimental" or
"informational". The many comments sent to IETF at that time
alerted committee members to this attempt and successfully
prevented the standard gaining approval.""