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."

Comments

Before the M$ Bashing Begins

[OverlordQ]

I think this follow-up to the post in the NG fits nicely:

Keep in mind that even though the core protocols haven't changed that
much, actual TCP/IP deployments have drastically changed since the
early 80s. Efficient packet forwarding algorithms (which are
necessary in Gigabit networks and beyond) are certainly subject to
patents today.

Re:Before the M$ Bashing Begins

[pchan-]

As might efficient packet discarding algorithms, as per their listing the Discard Protocol as one of the protocols you can license from them.

you're saying there's no innovation to be had in the discard protocol? the lazy unix programmer would just take his echo protocol implementation and redirect output to /dev/null. of course, after a bit of optimizing (and probably an assembly implementation), he would discover that he could just throw away that buffer and be done with it. now, you're thinking, "sure, that's obvious."

microsoft doesn't do things like that. they planned ahead. what if you want to tunnel discard over an ipsec tunnel of ipv6? what if you wanted to implement discard via remote method invocation using xml with soap? what if you wanted every application you write to have access to the discard protocol as simply as instantiating an object?

that's why they created the microsoft abstract discard server (ms discard). the ms discard library provides you with an abstract implementation of a general discard server, as well as a fully functional discard client. the discard server is fully input-neutral, and can accept data from many common stream formats. have you ever wanted to run a discard server against a relational database query? probably not. but now you can! this is done easily by using the odbc discard data source bridge (or if you need speed over portability, oci). virtually any data source can be discarded in a clean, multithreaded, scalable fashion. discard is now available enterprise-wide over ldap. do your discard servers need load balancing and failover redundancy? with ms discard, you can take advantage of advanced clustering features and achieve five 9's of uptime from your discard server farm (*requires ms discard clustering server and windows 2003 advanced server pro champion edition).

in short, don't assume that just because the protocol in basic, the implementation can't be bloated and patented.

Re:Before the M$ Bashing Begins

[Trogre]

Congratulations on your recent completion the first semester of the Cisco CCNA course!

I hope you feel better now that you've clarified your opinion of the terms TCP, IP and TCP/IP to the rest of us. Boy do we feel stupid.

Good luck with semester 2.

Intellectual Property Strikes Again!

[RAMMS EIN]

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?

Re:Like most other IP battles...

[datGSguy]

I for one welcome our new.... er... fuck no!

Re:How can I pay?

[mfearby]

What scares me is that Australia will probably end up with copyright and patent laws the same as the United States (which is part of our "free trade" agreement). I guess I can always renounce technology and go back to reading books and using pen and paper, but then, I'm sure Amazon has a patent on "a mechanism for the immediate and periodic loan of printed material from a central repository" (meaning I can't borrow library books, unless it takes more than one step :-)

No problem, use TTCPS!

[jocks]

Being the canny Scot that I am, I have used my inate ingenuity and now all my computers at home are linked together using TTCPS. Yes Two Tin Cans and a Piece of String networking is the way forward.

I have already spoken to Linus T. who will be imlementing TTCPS in kernel 2.8, but I have released some modules which can be compiled into kernels 2.4 and 2.6 right now. Those of us on BSD can try the Two Steel Cans and a Piece of Cord (TSCPC) protocol but I'm not sure about compatability.

I've also received a letter from SCO's lawyers claiming that the string I used was from their own private ball and I should cease and desist. To counter this I am using twine spun by my own mother from the wool of our own sheep. I still maintain that the string I was using was just like any other piece of string and as SCO has been unable to specify what length they have missing I am not too worried.

Some geeks over at www.ttcpsgeek.org have been experimenting with High-Tensile string and have achieved remarkable increases in bandwidth - expect this to be ported back into TTCPSv2, due for release at the end of February.

Re:MS & TCP/IP

[ettlz]

I think the acronyms have been mixed up here. Perhaps Microsoft is referring to the following, lesser-known usages:

• TCP/IP Take Court Proceedings over Intellectual Property;
• DNS Darl's Not Sinister;
• DHCP Devise Hazardous Corporate Patents;
• LPD Lawyers Paid Double; and, finally
• RIP Our IP

That said, I've never found any alternate uses for NetBIOS over TCP/IP. Or UPnP.

FUD

[anonymous cowherd (m]

This FAQ entry referenced by TFA makes it pretty clear that MSFT is not claiming ownership of anything with this:

Published Protocols And Royalty-Free License FAQ Q. When I sign a royalty-free agreement for these protocols, what am I licensing? A. The list of protocols under this license includes protocols for which documentation has been published, and that Microsoft has implemented in Windows client operating systems to interoperate with Windows server operating systems (up to and including Windows Server 2003). However, just because a protocol appears on the list does not mean that Microsoft is the owner or sole owner of rights in that protocol or its documentation. What the royalty-free license does is ensure that a license is available from Microsoft under whatever rights it may have in the published documentation and/or protocols on the list.

MSFT 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. Further, TFA itself states that "a significant number of protocols date from the early 1980's," so, "here is no reason to suspect that Microsoft has any patent rights to these early protocols (such as the TCP/IP v4 core protocols). Further, in the unlikely event that applicable patents may be discovered, they would have likely expired at this point."

This is clearly, yet again, a story that is more about MSFT bashing than about anything real.

Re:FUD

[davecb]

Not just FUD, but also lock-in. Please see the warning at the Samba Development page: In order to avoid any potential licensing issues we also ask that anyone who has signed the Microsoft CIFS Royalty Free Agreement not submit patches to Samba, nor base patches on the referenced specification.

Anyone who voluntarily licenses, for example, eating fish, must then abide by the fish-eating license (:-))

--dave

Re:FUD

[Dashing Leech]

Nothing to see here at all.

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.)

Re:FUD

[SilentChris]

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.

Re:FUD

[SilentChris]

Um, read the article. And the license. All you did was read the Slashdot headline.

If you read the license, you would've seen this:

"Implementation of these Protocols and, to the extent Microsoft is not the owner or sole owner of the Technical Documentation for these Protocols, use of this Technical Documentation may require securing additional rights from third parties. Licensee is responsible for contacting such third parties directly to discuss licensing details."

In other words, "We don't own or have any legal rights over any of this stuff. We're, instead, pointing you to the public domain."

If anything, the license is a complete absolution of any legal rights, and is instead a classification method. MS management probably asked "where does public domain stuff fit into our licensing schemes" (since everything at MS is licensed). The lawyers turned around and said "Nowhere." "Well, write a 'license' anyway, even if it doesn't do anything." If it was ever brought up and court, opponents could actually use the thing against MS and say "look, you absolved any possible legal ownership over these". If nothing else, this "license" is a good thing.

Re:FUD

[radtea]

TCP/IP is included on the list of licensed protocols.

"So what?", you may say.

Well...

The Recitals (which is the part of a license agreement that amongst other things lays out what property the licenser owns and is willing to license) declares that the licensee wants to license these protocols "under any applicable intellectual property rights that Microsoft may have"

But...

There is no conceivable scenario in which Microsoft could have any rights to TCP/IP whatsoever.

So why is it included in the agreement?

This would be like my company, whose products use XML parsers, licensing the XML standard to our users. It would be bizzare on the face of it, and such a contract would be in my view very poorly written. Good contracts contain just what they need to contain, and nothing more. Microsoft's lawyers probably know this.

So why exactly did they invest the effort into creating such an extensive list?

This story is not about Microsoft bashing. It is about a very strange license from a very powerful company, which should give us all pause.

--Tom

Closer look

[MadFarmAnimalz]

I think the level of implied evilness in this matter is overplayed. Microsoft aren't denying that these standards are not exactly theirs exclusively to play around with.

Reading the FAQ, it looks more like some arcane clot of lawyers came up with this one to cover [Microsoft's|developers'] butts from ???. (can't figure out what the lawyers were trying to accomplish).

Specifically, this:

Q. I noticed a number of these protocols are available for license via other avenues - for instance, under license agreements promulgated by members of a standards setting body. If I already have rights to implement protocols (e.g., under other agreements), do I also have to sign a royalty-free license?

A. No, unless you wish to obtain rights available under the royalty-free license that are not available under other license agreements you may have.

There. They are acknowledging that you can use the protocols anyway without signing this license agreement.

Strange move, but not evil if I read things properly.

One stop indemnification?

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one will welcome the day we can read a story about how Slashdot editors have finally decided to read the text of the submissions, and at least scan the contents of the offered links.

Re:Part of DOJ settlement (confusing)

[KontinMonet]

..a license is available from Microsoft under whatever rights it may have...

Of what use is this license to the ordinary Joe? If MS terminates the license after 30 days, then what? Does Joe have to re-license the use of all 130 protocols elsewhere? And is Joe aware that there may be rights that are no longer valid making him have only partial rights to documentation and protocols? And, under the terms of the license, no improvement to the protocols is allowed either even if MS has no rights in that particular protocol.

Perhaps MS should have named it a ...royalty free but (perhaps partially) restricting and confusing license...

Re:Al Gore

[itsNothing]

The record shows that Mr. Gore did a lot more for your internet connection than you're giving him credit for. Mr. Gore didn't invent networks or protocols or browsers. He gave you commercial-free bandwidth.

The most recent IEEE Spectrum (Nov. 2004) has an article about their success in predicting technology over the past 40 years (it's their 40th anniversary issue).

The 1989 entry (pg. 79) is The Internet. The text:

Sometimes all you have to do is unlock the barn door--the hourse will amble out, and the cart will follow. When it came to the horse that would turn into the Internet, Bob Lucky wasn't worried about where it would go--he just wanted to be sure he was along for the ride.

In September 1989, two years before any commercial activity on the Internet and four years before the graphical Web, the plucky Lucky, then a Bell Labs research director and still Spectrum's in-house sage, wrote: "A bill bending before the United States Congress, sponsored by Senator Albert Gore Jr. (D-Tenn), would authorize the construction of a nationwide gigabit network to connect educational and research institutes. The issue that keeps being raised is: what would a user do with a gigabit data link?"

Lucky's answer was simple. "We are not very good at prediciting uses until the actual service becomes available. I am not worried; we will think of something when it happens."

At that time, 56K was sufficient for research; those home users who existed were getting by with 300 to 1440 Baud. (Even today, many users still survive on dial-up.) Of course, someone would have gotten the idea to fund a high speed network for commercial use. However, it almost certainly wouldn't look like the one that got funded for educational and research use, though. Necessarily so, it would have been immediately organized to generate an ROI for the investors who paid for it. Who knows? Maybe SPAM would have been called: COMMERCIAL CONTENT?

Gore's contribution wasn't technical, but if you've been paying attention you'll know that the technical problems are almost always the easiest to solve. The Internet as we know it today wouldn't exist without high bandwidth, inexpensive data pipes, and Mr. Gore generated the cash to have those built. I think he deserves a little credit for the significance of the contribution he made.

Terminate your licence to use Appletalk?

[dbIII]

The licence does state plainly that MS can terminate it, and states plainly that Appletalk is covered by the licence.

It is not within Microsofts power to do that - so why is this document not considered fraud?

Also, MS offers no form of warranty and accepts no liability, so this licence is completely worthless in any case.

TCP/IP Term

[Anonymous Coward]

Go read TCP/IP Illustrated, volume I, by W. Richard Stenvens (one of the best technical book I know). The term "TCP/IP" is used to speak about all "the TCP/IP protocol suite", so it is about IP, TCP, UDP, ICMP, bgp4, ospf, etc.