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OSI And Microsoft Negotiating Over Sender ID
ValourX writes "Microsoft's Sender ID has already been rejected by both the Debian Project and the Apache Software Foundation, but Joe Barr of NewsForge today interviewed Larry Rosen of the Open Source Initiative and discovered that there are negotiations between the two entities with regard to Sender ID's licensing. Could Microsoft be considering an Open Source license for Sender ID? Slashdot has covered other aspects of this story in the past. NewsForge is part of OSTG, like Slashdot."
sender ID still sounds a lot like PGP to me. why not just use that?
Amen.
Microsoft might as well let SenderID go open source. It would make their jobs easier. Less spam = less viruses = less need for frequent updates and less load on Hotmail servers. Am I wrong?
Like TCP/IP?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Heh, that's kinda funny in that you think they're really trying to solve the spam problem and will compromise for the good of the end user.
They COULD be but it's doubtful, they are such a large corporation you just KNOW that they're sticking their head into yet another thing to gain marketshare. They might start out by saying we'll negociate but once the next version or update rolls around they won't be so forgiving.
This is simply my take on it, I'm not sure if any of it really will happen or if I'm just spreading FUD but I honestly can't see them doing it just for the good of man kind, there's gotta be some benefit to MS here that we just aren't seeing yet.
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
I would think Microsoft benefits by significantly reducing spam.
GMail invites for completed freeipods.com of
This could just be a tactic by Microsoft to push their software. Think about it, a somber looking Balmer (if that's even possible) saying "We tried to negotiate with the OSS community, but because of their ignorance we wern't able to come to an agreement"
Of course, at the same time they will start more FUD sites touting the benifits of Sender ID and why it will ONLY run on their software.
John 3:16 - The easiest way to a BETTER YOU.
the people who need to pull their finger out is ISC, they are the organisation in the best position to be initating the spam solution. think about it, and anti spam solution is going to involve DNS - what the leading DNS server? BIND. IF ISC and sendmail org got together they would have more clout on this issue then MS and be a hell of a lot more trust worthy.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
It's basically like this:
Alot of MS mail environments don't send mail like SPF envisions. Sender-ID basically makes life easier for MS customers. MS is coming to SPF people, saying, heh, can you modify your protocol to be a bit more friendly to our implementations?
And, since there are actually users behind those mail servers, SPF folks say, sure. Lets talk. Lets see how we can better adapt to your architecture.
Then MS turns around and says, oh, you want to adapt to us? You'll have to sign these forms.
At which point, SPF people walk away. They've already got a great way to tell eachother what they need to say, and while they're willing to work with MS, really, Sender-ID really helps MS more than it helps anyone else. A fate where exchange deployments need to either alter their topology or risk getting their mail dropped isn't one that's beneficial to the company.
Indeed, there are these people called customers that'll handle any intransigence on the part of their vendor. Which, uh, is about what's happening right now.
I'm not saying this is exactly what's going on. Neither side is monolithic. But this is, at least from the outside, what appears to be happening. Someone on the inside should feel free to correct me.
--Dan
With millions of dollars in bandwidth costs on the line, and potentially billions of dollars in customer satisfaction, Microsoft may very well want to play nice on this issue. SPAM is a serious problem, and bickering and fighting isn't going to make it go away. Cooperation and hard work will.
Bryan
Why should they? They're a business, not a charity organisation.
Same old problem ... who will watch the watchers. The only organization that is theoretically powerful enough to force Microsoft's compliance in such matters has repeatedly proven both its ineptness and impotence. And I don't see spammers (particularly those who aren't subject to the U.S. legal system) being too concerned about patent infringement. No, it seems to me that whatever system eventually gets adopted will have to be both wide-open and completely free of any "intellectual property" components (so that it can be trusted by all those who would have to use it) and implemented on such a massive scale that spam will simply become passe'. One nation isn't going to be able to combat spam all on its own: this will require ISPs the whole world over to co-operate. That is a non-trivial task in and of itself, but any attempt to promulgate a proprietary solution (particularly one controlled by a globally-distrusted entity such as Microsoft) is doomed to failure.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
They aren't just "a business" they are the utterly dominant presence in all-things-computers. They should act responsiby with that power; instead they use each and every little god-damned thing they can think of to put their own proprietary stuff out there with hooks that give MS complete control.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Exactly what I was saying in another thread, they have nothing to gain but more market share.. anything they do is to build market share and over take another market..
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
I'm just curious as to what is there to negotiate? Either they license it royalty-free for all fields of use, or it does not belong in an officially-recognised IETF standard. There is no "middle ground" license that will satisfy the community. Patents are, by definition, incompatible with open standards.
Anyone that does not agree with the above should research what happened to Netscape and Stacker, and the many others who tried to deal with M$. They all got consumed by M$ or another large Corp.(AOL got Netscape) or they just folded and dissapeared.
Negotiating with M$ reminds me of a line from the Godfather:
In ten seconds your signature or your brains will be on the paper.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I wonder if SenderID might require some old Exchange installs to be upgraded. When I tried searching Microsoft's web site for "SenderID Exchange 5.5", I got one link. Items I should consider when building "Commerce Solutions with Technology". So I am taking that as a yes. Cha-ching, Microsoft...Commerce Solutions with Technology at work!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
The essence of SenderID was obvious to a lot of people long before Microsoft decided to patent it. SPF, on which it's based, came from Meng Wong. There were the earlier RMX proposals from Hadmut Danisch, as well as another from Feyck, and another from Green. Paul Vixie had proposed a similar mechanism as early as the mid 90's. A lot of other people (myself included) independently hit upon roughly the same idea.
Basically, the problem is MS went ahead and patented something which had been proposed, in writing, by a lot of people (and perhaps simultaneously by Microsoft people), and now they're trying to restrict its use. We're not asking for generosity here. Whatever the USPTO says, MS didn't really invent this stuff, so they have no moral right (even if they now have a legal right) to dictate terms. Not asking for handouts, just fair play.
How?
I thought that it was a reasonable assumption that M$ would benefit from a reduction in Spam, but apart from freeing up bandwidth on their own network, how would they benefit?
Yeah, everyone will be crying in their beer when Yahoo's (lesser of several evils) DomainKeys starts being used to control access to Yahoo's large spookable herd of eyeballs.
I have said this before - anyone (Yahoo, HotMail, gmail, MS*) who has large numbers of mail boxes that people want to reach can be billed. How? By Signing outgoing mail you are certifying that _you_ have sent that mail - all yahoo has to do is count the number of mails signed by domain example.com and then autoforward a weekly/monthly bill to the email address in the whois system for domain example.com
You say, never gonna happen, people won't pay, they won't get the billing email - it won't matter to Yahoo - they send bills, if they don't get paid they just blacklist that cert/domain.
The big email box herders would have no reason to do this if Yahoo!DomainKey (tm) is widely deployed. If you disargee please explain why they wouldn't do it.
have you used apache/bsd code in a proprietary product without releasing the source?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Yeah.
Exactly the same way that DVD-CCA's patent on CSS has empowered them to sue all non-conforming DVD player software out of existence.
Exactly the same way SCO's "copyrights" and "patents" on UNIX technology allowed them to sue all non-conforming UNIX and UNIX-like implementations out of existence.
Nice thought; won't work.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
For some parts of the world $.25 per message would effectively prevent 99% of the population to ever send email again. It is principally wrong to introduce a world wide tax on email.
Post is a national thing dealing with physical borders and old (often state owned) companies that have worked out deals for international post. You cannot translate this system to email, which stems naturally from the peer to peer character of the IP protocol and knows nothing about borders. Who would collect the tax, who would decide what is a fair fee for every country in the world?
The idea of paying per message is absurd and self-centered.
No spam would make the internet a place were more people would consider to spend time -> bigger market
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
I can't tell you what the worker bees at Microsoft are considering, but I can tell you what the movers and shakers at the top are considering. They're considering what course of action will do the most harm to the Free Software community in general, and people's perception of the GPL in particular. When they think they've figured out what that course of action is, they'll tell the troops to do it.
well great... here goes my possibility of running my own mailserver on a dialup with a changing ip. Why me? I never mailed spam to anyone! Why can't Microsoft just let me live? Why do the mark me as a danger to society? Thats simply not fair!
Sender-ID provides for a few other things too...
Out of honest curiousity, what are those additional features? I'm most certainly not a SenderID expert (or even informed layman), but I've browsed through the SenderID documents and the feature seems to be nothing more than listing outbound IPs in your DNS entries. What else does it offer?
We know already that SID doesn't comply in spirit with the internet we know and love.
.. and its by our trustworthy future thinking pal microsoft.
We know spammers are already lined up and using SID, so the system is already polluted. "ya want validated spam with that?"
MS doesn't want OSS/Linux/etc. They have made that quite clear. Right now they need us to support this or the whole thing fails- or they start an apache war or something. MS has enough control already. IMHO they should have no say-so about my email.
Some persons at ms are getting *paid* to deploy this successfully & quickly and they will try very hard to do so. This includes convincing everyone else to support it. (for free?) Hold the ropes boys and girls.
Why would the OSS community care about supporting something that is IP encumbered by ms and in litigation, broken, basterdized, and infested with spammers already? err
So IIRC if they flick the switch on this thing hotmail and msn will be crippled and only work with SID friendly systems. Boo Hoo. maybe hotmail users will complain to ms since they won't be able to complain to me!
Look-- Every time ms does something like this eg: tcp/ip, kerberos, iis,ie,outlook, etc. it's a train wreck of decaying squid parts. Learn from the mistakes. If they need support for SID stall them:
Tell them you'll put it on an Action List or you'll do it as soon as 'counsel gives you the green light'. Tell them you use drugs and therefore cannot be trusted with such thigs until rehab! or Just lie! They'll never expect it! Better yet make them believe it will soon be supported!
Anyway I hereby claim my disgust and lack of support for sender id and beg all the developers working so hard on interesting things being bothered to support this to not waste their time and keep on inventing.
Thank you.
Firefox &
Sure it is.
Microsoft is a master at manipulating situations for it's own gain and to the severe detriment of everyone else. This fact should not be ignored when considering their products.
It has been this way since MITS, quite possibly since before you were even born.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.