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MS Releases License For Sender-ID

Posted by michael on from the embrace-and-patent dept.

NW writes "Microsoft published today a new license and FAQ for Sender-ID anti-spam standard being developed by the IETF's MARID WG (based on SPF). To use the license, a signed agreement with MSFT is required. Compatability with the Open Source Definition, the Free Software Definition, the Debian Free Software Guidelines, and the GPL/LGPL licenses is already in question."

2 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. The First Shot in the Standards Wars by maximino · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is it! Of course we've seen things like this before, but Microsoft is preparing to ensure its eternal monopoly by making sure no one can leave its systems. It would be just fine by Redmond if no one could send e-mail without proper authorization. But now that we've got patented standards, expect to see locked-in Office files, network protocols, the works. Most people and companies really couldn't switch from Windows if they could no longer open their files or network with a Windows machine. The fact that Microsoft is willing to pull this now when some high-level spam solution is required is just reprehensible. In light of their withdrawal from the UN standards committee today I think we're seeing how the next 5 years is going to go.

  2. Senmail's Position by Mike+deVice · · Score: 5, Interesting
    There are two quotes from this message by Eric Allman of Sendmail, Inc. that are pretty interesting...

    On the open source side, the sendmail MTA is routinely bundled into other larger systems, notably open source operating system releases such as Linux and BSD distributions as well as commercial closed-source systems such as Solaris and AIX. Bundlers would need to execute their own copy of the RFSIPL. Those systems are in turn sometimes incorporated into other products, which would seemingly require another layer of patent licenses, and so on down the tree. As a practical matter, this makes the decision to include sendmail with Sender ID into their release more problematic. This is obviously not desirable from our point of view.

    And...

    While these are pragmatic rather than legal reasons, our likely decision at Sendmail will be to distribute our Sender ID implementation as a separate package that is not required to run the sendmail MTA under a distinct (possibly modified) Sendmail Open Source license. Open source users will have the option of downloading and installing the Sender ID package should they want the additional functionality. Bundlers will be able to choose whether they want to include the Sender ID technology or not, but will still be able to use the base sendmail MTA without additional IPR issues.

    I'll be really interested to find out what the take of some Linux Distros will be on this.