RMS Weighs In On SPF/Sender-ID License

NW writes "In a recent message to the MARID list RMS weighs in on the licensing issues of Sender-ID/SPF and Microsoft: 'Microsoft's Sender-ID license is directly incompatible with free software regardless of which free software license is used. Free software means users are free to run it, study and modify the source, and to redistribute it with or without changes. Free to do so means there is no requirement to ask or tell anyone that you are doing so.'" "MARID" stands for MTA Authorization Records in DNS; here's the IETF MARID working group's charter. (Read more below.)

Stallman's message continues: "The Microsoft license for Sender-ID directly forbids release of software with all these freedoms, so it is impossible for any program to be free software under Microsoft's regime. I've been expecting to see something like this ever since Gates started talking about spam. This license is an example of Microsoft's strategy for killing off free software as an alternative to Windows. Microsoft first patents something, then incorporates it into a format or protocol, then tries to make it de rigueur while excluding those it wishes to exclude. In the absence of resistance, Microsoft has a good chance of imposing whatever standards it likes. Let us, therefore, resist it here and now."

Comments

Re:It's pretty simple

[gaijin99]

How does this stop anyone from writing SenderID checking software that is GPL'd or GPL friendly?

It stops it because MS has patents on some of the critical aspects of the "standard", and their license for using the "standard" can be modified to preclude someone from implementing a GPL'd implementation. It doesn't now, but they explicitly reserve all rights, and state that they can modify the license at any moment, so what keeps them from screwing us with this?

Look at what SCO is doing now, claiming to own ELF, using that as an attempt to demand money from Linux users. If we let MS's non-open "standard" become a real standard they'll wait a few years until everyone depends on it, then use it as a weapon to try and crush competition. I'm not being paranoid here, I'm simply extrapolating from MS's history; they do that sort of thing on a regular basis.