Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

OSI And Microsoft Negotiating Over Sender ID

Posted by timothy on from the accord-is-nice-but-so-is-lexus dept.

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."

3 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

  3. 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.