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MS Releases License For Sender-ID
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."
FAQ for Microsoft's
Royalty-Free Sender ID Specification License
Microsoft Corporation
August 2004
Q1: What is the purpose of the patent license?
A1: The adoption of Sender ID is important for the industry and Microsoft wants to facilitate the
adoption of the standard by licensing its necessary patent rights on a royalty free basis and
encouraging others to license their patent rights that cover the Sender ID specification similarly
on a royalty-free basis. That is why Microsoft's license includes all of Microsoft's current and
pending patent rights that are necessary to implement the Sender ID specification not just the
pending patent application claims Microsoft is currently aware of.
Q2: Doesn't having a patent on Sender ID complicate the process of getting it adopted as
an IETF standard?
A2: No. It should not. There are dozens and dozens of patent rights that have been disclosed to
the IETF that may cover IETF standards. See http://www.ietf.org/ipr.html for a complete list. We
are not aware of any of these patents complicating the standards process especially where the
patent owner has provided an assurance that it would make licenses available on a royalty-free
basis with other reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions as Microsoft has done
here.
Q3: Why is Microsoft asking people to take a license?
A3: In order to promote Sender ID, Microsoft is pleased to offer its necessary Sender ID patent
rights on a royalty-free basis but only to those who are also willing to make their Sender ID
patents available on a reciprocal royalty-free basis. The license is also important to Microsoft for
defensive reasons. The reciprocity provisions and the ability to reserve defensive rights for
Microsoft's implementations of standards are very important elements in our decision to
contribute technology to standards.
Q4: When do I need to execute a license with Microsoft?
A4: At this time Microsoft is only aware of pending patent application claims that cover its
submission of the Sender ID specification. Because Microsoft is not aware of any issued patent
claims, Microsoft does not require any one to sign a license with Microsoft to implement the
Sender ID specification or any part of it that is incorporated into IETF working drafts. In
conformance with the IETF IPR policy Microsoft has disclosed the existence of those pending
patent claims and has provided its assurance that if such claims are granted Microsoft will make
licenses available on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. Microsoft has also gone beyond
the IETF's requirements by clarifying that its licenses will require no fees or other royalties, and
further, to make a license available to early adopters who wish at their option to clarify their rights
with Microsoft with respect to early implementations. Typically patent holders do not make their
license terms available until after the standard has been adopted and until after their patent
claims have been granted, leaving early implementers to speculate as to the ultimate terms of the
license.
Q5: What do I need to do for binary and/or source code distribution?
A5: Many open source licenses require you to include copyright notices distributed in the code
itself identifying the authors of the code being distributed. Some open source licenses also
require you to include the license under which you received the code with the code that you
distribute so that downstream users of the code are made aware of the terms and conditions
under which they can use the code. Microsoft does not require any notice or other attribution
when you disclose or distribute your implementation in binary form. However, if you disclose or
distribute your implementation in source code form, we think it is important for you to include a
patent attribution (from sec. 2.2 of our royalty-free patent license) in your source code and in
close proximity to the license under which you make your sou
How long will it be before you have to have a signed agreement with Microsoft to send an email?
Seriously, does Microsoft think that highly of themselves that they can dictate a standard that requires a license from them? Sure they have a majority of the OS and E-mail clients, but I doubt they have a majority of the Mail Servers out there.
In the current climate you could never produce a HTTP/SMTP type protocol because everyone is out to make money and gain power. What Microsoft has done is take a relatively open protocol and slapped a 'Microsoft Property' sticker on it, this will effectively limit its usefulness even if they are not charging a penny.
What is stopping them from letting it catch on and then asking for $1 from each project?
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.
Just to get everyone up to speed:
- SPF (http://spf.pobox.com) is the current email authentication protocol that is dominating the world.
- Microsoft proposed Caller ID which was never accepted by the community.
- Microsoft and SPF advocate Meng Weng Wong brokered a deal and formed Sender ID. Basically, SPF is intact, but some features of Caller ID are preserved as an optional extension.
The part of Caller ID that remains is the PRA or "Purported Responsible Authority". The PRA is deteremined by a complicated algorithm that I personally don't believe would work. The algorithm is intentionally vague in some areas, and the results are ultimately subjective. The intention of the PRA algorithm is to determine who wrote the email based on the email headers. As everyone knows, the email headers are spoofable. But the idea goes, if you can track down the PRA, then you can authenticate this email based on that, rather than just the last hop like SPF does.
The problem from day one has been the patent issue. Microsoft is in the process of patenting the PRA algorithm. This isn't a problem. The problem is that Microsoft refuses to put the patent in the public domain or license the patent such that anyone can use it except those who use patents against Microsoft. Both of those strategies are perfectly reasonable, and are pretty much what IBM does for most of its patents.
Microsoft originally wanted to get a copy of the software and a signature before they would grant a license. Well, that doesn't work for F/OSS. The MARID working group who is investigating various solutions to the email authentication protocol for the IETF has been petitioning Microsoft to revise or clarify their licensing procedure. Well, they finally have, and in so doing they have not made it F/OSS compatible.
Microsoft thinks they can bully us around, but they don't realize they are the small kid on the email block. Their Caller ID failed. Now Sender ID is going to fail because Microsoft refuses to participate.
But that's okay. The PRA algorithm isn't anything we'll need to solve the email authentication problem.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
As long as the IETF maintains a global perspective, it can not accept standards encumbered by IP more restrictive than the GPL. It seems obvious -- we've all benefited by open standards on the Internet. But who knows, stranger things have happened.
This could be a good test case. MS may continue to pursue its IP Holy Grail business model, but if the IETF can stand firm and refuse restrictive licensing, they will not be able to force it down the world's throat. On the other hand, if the IETF does accept these kinds of IP restrictions, MS may have a path forward in pursuing its new business model of patents and copyrights for obvious and trivial ideas.
Whew.. I almost thought I saw Microsoft and standard
used in the same sentence. That was a close one.
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.So now nobody will implement this, and Microsoft, through patenting something obvious and trying to license it has scared everyone away from some pretty good ideas that would have been implemented otherwise, with or without Microsoft's help.
This is just the latest chapter in IP stupidity.
This stuff has been discussed for years, if this had been treated like most other W3C standards we'd be in the clear by now waiting for implementations, instead everyone's scared. Does anyone realistically think that there aren't patents that W3C standards already infringe? Finally we actually get rights to something and we're inspecting the teeth, simply because the subject has been raised.
The crazy part of this whole deal is that most software is riddled with potential patent violations, including Microsoft's and including projects like Mozilla, Gimp and Open Office. That's why MS are trying to retain *defensive* rights, because they know it would be dangerous to give this IP away, anyone could stand on their shoulders, and a widget and then sue them (and that has happened already) and Microsoft would have no way of countering. If they adopted a more GPL oriented license with the rights being rescinded in the event of any patent suit against M$ it would be golden. They could just do to the protagonists what IBM has just done to SCO, infact that wording is almost already in the GPL.
I think this situation can be salvaged with another revision of the license. We should not give up on this or go for the second best option on such an improtant proposal.
We're getting to witness what the beginning of the web would have been like had Tim Bernards Lee patented some of his ideas. It ain't going to be pretty.