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Debian Project Rejects Sender-ID
NW writes "Following on the heels of Apache Foundation taking a stance against Sender-ID, the Debian Project announced today their rejection of Sender-ID as well."
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Although I hope you're correct, it's incredibly naive to believe so.
The truth is, proprietary 'standards' are all over the place. They are especially effective when directly-marketed to consumers, cutting out all the middle-men who might say "whoah there, that isn't a good deal" and replacing them with glossy print ads full of half-truths.
And, let's face it, Windows itself is the greatest direct-marketing tool ever created. I'm not looking forward to the direction this is going.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Everybody here is no doubt familiar with the "unofficial standard" that is Microsoft Word: meaning, they have been sent Word documents or asked to send documents in Word format as if everybody used Word. Microsoft has ensured that the clueless masses default to Word's format as an Internet standard (or as an example of "best practices" -- to use the latest buzzword).
You can find examples of this in business, education, and government.
It's possible that we're going to see e-mail "evolve" in the same way. Ninety percent of e-mail flying around the Internet will use the new Sender ID standard; those not using it will seem odd and likely be forced to use it more often than not in their various business dealings.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Perhaps there will be no adoption of sender-id; perhaps an open solution will prevail. The reason the internet works as well as it does is open standards. Perhaps these companies that are trying to encumber "standards" are slowly learning that they will not gain the acceptance of their "standards" and will have to compete on the merit of implementations of open standards rather than locking people into a "standard". This is just the newest version of proprietary file formats; unfortunately it is the only way Microsoft knows to compete anymore. Rather than compete on a level playing field, Microsoft wants to lock you into their new "standard" rather than compete on the merits of their products.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
We are also concerned that no company should be permitted intellectual property rights (IPR) over core Internet infrastructure.
Seems obvious to me. Why isn't it obvious to the IETF?
Debian again: We believe the IETF needs to revamp its IPR policies to ensure that the core Internet infrastructure remain unencumbered.Right on.
A company like Microsoft has no respect for the rights of others, no respect for ethics, no respect for the ideals of the people who built the Internet infrastructure for our benefit. I agree with Debian that no company should be permitted IP rights over core Internet infrastructure. But especially not a predatory company like Microsoft.