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Microsoft Offers to License the Internet
NW writes "According to an eWeek story Microsoft is beginning to assert IP rights over 130 protocols including many basic Internet protocols including TCP/IP, DNS, etc. The story originates with a mailing list post to the IETF's IPR list."
This one was probably started by a intern lawyer at MS who's trying to impress his boss with "Look what I can do!"
And I thought the purpose of intellectual property was to encourage innovation. With talented people now forced to investigate potential issues, I can't see how IP does anything but slow progress. Time for revision?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Not only are their legal precedents shaky (to say the least), they didn't even bother to check their facts very well. For one thing, they refer to the "ping" program as "Packet Internet Groper (ping)". This meaning of the program's name is a well-known backronym of the original meaning which the author of ping stated had to do with the similarity to submarines.
Maybe this is a hint as to how much actual investigative work they have put into this spectacle.
And of course, when yet another of MS' asinine patents is discussed, the shills come out of the woodwork bleating the corporate line "Microsoft is only interested in using their IP defensively!".
I completely fail to see how this can ever be used for anything but to harass competitors. Not surprising, since this strategic direction was already outlined in a 1998 memo.
So this ought to shut up the MS shills for awhile (unfortunately, there is a large divide between 'ought' and 'will').
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Yeah, but while I've never really thought of IBM as being particularly benign, I definitely do not think of them as the kinda company who'd go around suing people unless they _really_ had to -- but I'm afraid I share the same sentiment about Microsoft.
I think despite everything, IBM at the very least showcases some ethics and principles -- maybe the IBM of the days gone was indeed an Evil Corp (TM) -- but I think the IBM of today is not so evil, maybe nice even.
However, I've never felt so about Microsoft -- they've always come across as _exactly_ the kind who would do something like this. Especially given their antitrust track-record and FUD on Linux and what not. Microsoft comes across precisely as the sort of greedy company that you would expect such a lawsuit from, no matter what.
But what do I know. IBM maybe turn just as evil, when it comes to corps you can never really say. Look at Sun -- how quickly they changed sides and what they're degenerating into.
I can only hope that IBM (and Google) and a few others don't go the same way.
LMSFT is not, as TFA summary indicates, "licencing the internet," in any meaningful way. That would imply that MSFT owns or controls what it is licencing.
If they don't claim to own or control it, why are they licensing it?
You can't license what you don't own. The obvious motivation for this long list is to allow MS to claim ownership at some future date when President Jeb Bush lifts even the pathetic restrictions of the DoJ case. They know that many small companies (and that's most when compared to MS) will simply fold and pay up rather than face being ground down in court for 10 years arguing the point.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
This does seem like it was created just to fulfill that portion of the DOJ settlement. However, MS obfuscated it in an insane way so you can't even see which protocols you actually want to license. Give the reader so much data that they are overwhelmed and just give up.
Although I had assumed it was illegal to claim you could license something you don't own. Or maybe MS is licensing "their" version of the protocol. Like Kerberos. Their version isn't standard at all...
"Thus, by signing the agreement as it presently stands, one might be agreeing to certain things gratuitously, meaning simply that the licensee agrees to give Microsoft continuing control over how the protocols are used," Peterson said.
This is exactly how the real world works. The worlds of politics, business, law, promotions, even employment interviews, are based on recruiting your support for agreements which can't be negotiated.
Wasn't this how BIll managed to get Microsoft's ownership of an early version of DOS for a minimal amount of money? I'd heard he got someone else to enter an agreement which recognized it as owned by Microsoft, but he hadn't actually paid anyone else that contributed to writing it (yet).
Well, and all the poor German children around the 1940s. They thought it was like playing mountaineer when they got to join Boy Scouts (or whatever the German equivalent is).
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
It is clear to anyone who reads the license itself (or, if you perfer english, the FAQ) that Microsoft is not trying to claim IP ownership over *any* of the protocols listed in the license. They specifically and clearly say this a number of times in both documents.
However, that doesn't mean this is totally benign. It is classic M$ policy to require the user to license technology from them whether they plan to profit from it, or restrict usage or not; it is better, on their view, to have consumers using their technologies under only a nominal license (the terms of which may be changed later, if need be) than under no license at all. Given that M$ clearly doesn't *know* what protocols they have what rights over, it may be that they're distributing a catch-all license, in the hopes of figuring out what their rights are later and locking them down.
However, as IANAL, this raises the question of whether such a hypothetical license is binding...can you ask a user to sign a license under an IP right that neither party can identify, and that may not even exist? Given that it doesnt even specifiy what it is that the user is licensing (it only effectively says what it relates to)...can this even be considered a real license?
caritj.org
Except that we don't need a license to use them, and by signing up to the license we are locked into something.
This looks very much like someone saying "Sign my free license and you will be able to use your own bank cards", which you can do now, but the license says you can only use money obtained through the bank card to buy Microsoft products. Why would anyone take that license?
This sounds very much like a bad scam. It's not clear what the purpose of it is or why Microsoft is doing this. It doesn't appear to give you anything you don't already have. (And yes, I RTFA.)
RTFL (read the f'ing license). There's no "signup", no "legal binding". I don't think they even expect anyone to request this license.
Methinks this was just a way of classification within Microsoft. Someone in management asked "What kind of license do we give out for the public domain stuff we use?" (because EVERYTHING at MS is license; if you use the bathroom, you're licensed to do so). The lawyers looked, saw that they didn't own any of it, and put together a faux "license" that basically says "We don't own any of it, even though it's in our product."
If you read through the license, it basically exercises no legal rights at all. It's a pointer, in essense, to the public domain. If this was ever brought up in a court, the opponents could basically point to the thing and say "MS, you absolved all potential 'rights' with this 'license'." If nothing else, this "license" is a good thing, because MS is basically backing off with it's hands in the air.
This license resembles the Sender-ID license and therefor makes Open Source implementations with this license very dificult. Please read the Apache Software Foundation's position regarding sender ID. Lawrence Rosen states:
Now, please have a look at the Microsoft license for these 130 protocols:Due to the similairities of the Sender ID license and this license I think, Open Source may never be able to live up to the requirements of this license. If it doesn't, it might not necessarily be at risk for litigation over whatever rights Microsoft might have, but Microsoft definitely gains the selling point of having legally unencombered implementations while Open Source has none.
As I said, IANAL. Maybe someone with more legal knowledge can comment on this subject. I hope I'm wrong.
...this license is referenced in the EULA for the next version of Windows, whether XP2 or Longhorn (or sooner in the next versions of various network enabled products, like MSN messenger). End user and PHB ignorance is they only way this scheme can work, and MS knows it.
Microsoft is essentially trying to do to the internet what SCO is trying to do to linux.
This license basically amounts to intent to defraud.
if you are familiar with the OSI model, it can pretty easily explain any network
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model
Anyway, the microsoft "network model" appears to be the same for every protocol, and more or less has an easy swap Network/Transport area (or, the protocol used).
7 Application - Windows Application
6 Presentation - Kernel mode Executive Services
5 Session - SMB | WIN sockets
4 Transport - *see below
3 Network - *see below
2 Data Link - NDIS interface (driver)
1 Physical - Hardware
*these are filled in with anything MS offers as a drop in, wether it be IPX/SPX, APPLETALK, NETBEUI, or, in the case of my example, TCP/IP.
Now, to get all these to work "seamlessly" (yeah, right), microsoft made tie-ins so that they can all still use "NetBEUI" style names (the NetBios over TCP/IP for example).
Starting with Windows NT, microsoft began altering the normal steps for NetBIOS (you know, that \\computername thing?)resolution to "enhance" it the standard (most likely set by IBM when they came up with it), doing things they thought were more efficient.
Most likely they did this with everything else too (which explains "rights" to most of the protocols that would fill in layers 5 and up, including FTP, HTTP, SMPT, etc.), and in doing so, did something that required them to change the level 4 and 5 protocols, which alone would be enough to claim "rights" to their changes.
****I stopped reading other comments about 1 page into the 6 that are here now. Why? I'm impulsive... I did however search for the word "NetBIOS" to see if the exapmle was there, and it wasn't, so if someone already actually argued the changes they had to make in order to use NetBIOS for everything when nobody else ever does, then I'm sorry. Also, I'm lazy and didn't actually read that link, and instead relied on things I had to learn 3 years ago for the Network+. Yes, I know the OSI layer is an abstract thought more than anything technical, but it still shows the connection, and as such, maybe, in some way is slightly... on topic...even if completely unneeded in my point. I am not responsible for any injuries you may inflict upon yourself as a result of reading this. Ducks are kinda neat. They echo, though.****