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80% of MS Server Protocols Are Unpatented
perlow writes "ZDNet blogger Jason Perlow and Centrify's Tom Kemp discover that 80 percent of all Microsoft server protocols are un-patented. What exactly then, did SAMBA license? Are Microsoft's patent and intellectual property threats simply the growls of a paper tiger?"
Isn't there that myth that some win95 code was ported to win98 just because nobody knew what it did?
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
...and despite repeated requests, they won't tell you which one actually is patented. They will only say that you have infringed upon it.
you obviously haven't read many recent patent apps. not describing implementation details is the norm. (often the patent holder doesn't even bother coming up with an implementation...just hopes to piggy-back on the work of real engineers)
http://kered.org
Right. The PFIF agreement contains a section called "Exhibit A", which details all the protocols covered by the agreement, including the SMB and CIFS protocols.
Note that Samba 3 does not just implement SMB -- it implements CIFS, MSDFS, several challenge-response and key-exchange protocols, Microsoft's extensions to Kerberos for ADS integration, some stuff to support point-and-print, etc. In addition, Samba 4, which focuses on being an ADS server, implements several more important Microsoft protocols required to support serving ActiveDirectory.
Samba does a LOT more than SMB, as you can see.
However, the list isn't a comprehensive list of protocols that are covered by patents. As you say, they're not licensing the patents, they're just providing documentation under NDA and agreeing not to sue and to indemnify against third-party suits.
That being said, I really doubt that SMBv1 is patented by Microsoft. It originates with the unholy IBM/Microsoft marriage, and even then, it's derived from some old DEC protocol. I doubt very much that anybody has any patents on SMBv1 that have survived to date.
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