On Wed, 14 Jul 2004, Mark Lentczner wrote:
Regarding the issues of licensing and intellectual property:
1) It has been my understanding that any technology that Microsoft has
claims to would be made available with zero royalty licensing terms
that are compatible with open source development and distribution
including GNU licenses and OSF approved licenses. If this is the case
and the license bears it out, then I have no objections to such an
arrangement. If this is not the case, I am confident Microsoft will
clarify their intentions.
For the definition of "compatible" here, I think software vendors might be
concerned as to whether the Royalty-Free license is also "sub-licenseable".
That is, does the MTA vendor need to agree to the license, or are they
required to show an MS-written license to the user and require THEM to agree
too?
My opinion is that patented property or otherwise-controlled-IPR has no place
in developing "standards". But, since I'm not an MTA vendor, it doesn't
impact me directly. I would probably defer to Rand or Hector or someone who
actually distributes software.
Let's also be aware that the Unix-geek community already has a healthy
skepticism of Microsoft, so it would be in MARID's best interest to make sure
that there are 1. no legal roadblocks to wide implementation, and 2. not even
the *appearance* of any kind of encumbrance or controls. I would encourage
Harry and other MS folks to be Very Proactive to combat perceived barriers as
well as real ones. For example, if the Royalty Free license provides all the
same rights as the GPL, using the actual GPL will create goodwill and harmony,
whereas using some other license MS makes up might breed skepticism.
gregc
--
Greg Connor
gconnor(_at_)nekodojo(_dot_)org
Everyone says that having power is a great responsibility. This is a lot
of bunk. Responsibility is when someone can blame you if something goes
wrong. When you have power you are surrounded by people whose job it is
to take the blame for your mistakes. If they're smart, that is.
-- Cerebus, "On Governing"