Slashdot Mirror


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."

18 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. hm.. by mcovey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    sender ID still sounds a lot like PGP to me. why not just use that?

    --
    Amen.
    1. Re:hm.. by Nermal6693 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because MS can't possibly acknowledge that someone else has already come up with the idea.

  2. MS - OS by StevenHenderson · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

  3. Re:Bah by BitterOak · · Score: 3, Insightful
    For once I'd like to see a standard (free and open) that MS has to follow instead of the other way around.

    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?
  4. Battle Tactics by N5 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  5. what is ISC doing? by timmarhy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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....
  6. From what I can tell by Effugas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

  7. It's all about $$$ by Dalroth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

  8. Re:Bah by cbreaker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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. -
  9. Re:Bah by FuzzzyLogik · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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..

  10. What's to negotiate? by rhysweatherley · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  11. Commerce Solutions with Technology! by toupsie · · Score: 4, Insightful
    And less money selling software and services. Microsoft makes money off the issues that face their users with their products. SMS, MOM and ISA are few examples of products that help manage, update, monitor and protect Microsoft's other products. And they make good coin for selling and consulting those "added value" products. You can dupe most of these in linux with nagios, apt-get/emerge/up2date, snort, squid and ip tables but you don't get a nice guy from Microsoft that will hold your hand and tell you its alright you don't understand why it doesn't work exactly like the manual says. You get flamed on a message board and told to RTFM. Plus the Microsoft guy will buy you lunch!

    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.
  12. Re:Bah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  13. Re:pgp and domainkeys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  14. Re:divide and conquer by flacco · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Microsoft has a point about GPLed stuff. God bless Apache and their BSD style licensing.

    have you used apache/bsd code in a proprietary product without releasing the source?

    --
    pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
  15. Re:Patents and Sender blocking.. Is not pure evil by ewhac · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Wouldn't a patent on a mail mechanism be the perfect legal method of reducing spam? If the patent was held by a benevolent enough organisation, they could revoke spammers rights to use the patented methods to send spam, and not need to worry about new laws being passed.

    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

  16. Re:Nit-picking by ergo98 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

  17. do NOT dance with this devil! by tweedlebait · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We know already that SID doesn't comply in spirit with the internet we know and love.

    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 .. and its by our trustworthy future thinking pal microsoft.

    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 & /. ? Use this often: