Apache Rejects Sender ID

hexene writes "In an open letter to the IETF MARID Working Group, the Apache Software Foundation has rejected the patent-encumbered Sender ID specification. This means no Sender ID support for SpamAssassin, Apache JAMES, etc. They state that the current license is generally incompatible with open source, and contrary to the practice of open Internet standards."

Comments

Patent encumbered indeed!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this why the sender ID article on Wikipedia is only a stub?

Please, click "edit this page" and help if you know anything!

Stick with JAMES

[Anonymous Coward]

I use JAMES for my mail transport, and have found it to be fantastic. A single XML file can configure all the services you need (SMTP, POP3, IMAP), with or without TLS. If you want TLS, you just add an entry for it.

Also, it's really easy to write custom programs for mail processing, called "Matchers" or "Mailets" (many already exist), for things like SPAM detection, custom mail delivery, etc. I highly recommend it over sendmail/qmail.

Good articles on this

[Anonymous Coward]

A few good articles on sender-ID controversy:

http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,1761,a=134028 ,00.asp
http://www.circleid.com/article/730_0_1_0_C/
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1639880,00.as p
http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=04/09/01/1 555212
http://trends.newsforge.com/14/04/08/26/1326244.sh tml?tid=137

Also, here are the opinions of Eben Moglen of FSF and Larry Rosen of OSI:
http://www.imc.org/ietf-mxcomp/mail-archive/msg036 78.html

What this means for the standard

[cerberusti]

In less than a week, IETF Last Call for this standard will be over. As of the moment, there is no consensus on the Microsoft patent issue. This will almost certainly prevent the standard from moving forward. The IETF is too divided on this issue for the standard to progress as it is.

Also, a clarification of how the IETF handles patent claims seems to be in order.

Patents are allowed in IETF standards under any terms that the working group feels are acceptable. In most cases, since the goal is to produce a standard which is useful to the largest group possible, patented methods are only used if the patent holder is willing to grant a very permissive license.

For example: The latest working group I was part of was SEND (SEcure Neighbor Discovery), a part of IPv6. SEND makes use of Cryptographically Generated Addresses, which are patented by Erricson. Erricson agreed to license the patent on the terms below:

In addition, for the CGA submission, if said submission is included in the IETF SEND standard and Ericsson has patents that are essential to the implementation of such included submission in said standard, Ericsson shall not assert any such patent against any company or legal entity using said patents in the IETF SEND standard. The Ericsson non-assertion is conditional upon such company or legal entity not asserting any patents within the IETF SEND standard against Ericsson. For all other purposes Ericsson's general patent license statement as referred to above, shall apply.

This is a fairly normal license for the IETF and was found to be acceptable. In almost every case where a patent is relevant to one of our standards, a licence statement such as this one is provided.

The Microsoft license is different, and has sparked quite a bit of discussion. Since this standard has a very large intended audience and there is significant concern over the terms of the license, unless Microsoft changes the terms of their license, this will stop the standard from progressing as is. Either the standard will be restructured to avoid using the methods claimed in the Microsoft patent, or the working group will terminate without a standard.

A lot of people are irritated about this.