It's quite clear that the GNU/FSF camp in this list will go to full lengths
to describe how incompatible Microsoft's IPR claims and licensing
requirements are with their precious GPL. It's also clear that Microsoft is
not interested in appeasing this group even though Harry, Jim and Bob have
gone to extreme lengths to accommodate the not-so-extreme groups (*BSD, APL,
MPL, and so forth).
Once again a short term memory reveals itself. I seem to remember that the
General Public License came about as a direct response to the kind of
restrictions the likes of Microsoft, SCO (formerly AT&T UNIX) and their ilk
are so fond of imposing on its customers. It has been said that the GPL was
intentionally designed to be incompatible with any license that required
acknowledgement of IPR, monetary or otherwise.
That intentional design of the GPL has lead to arguments in the GNU/Linux
community that many of the components that comprise of the typical Linux
distribution are inherently incompatible with each other legally. The Apache
Group was recently shunned by the FSF because of recent changes in the Apache
license, for example. The XFree86 group before that. I remember the heated
arguments over KDE vs GNOME and how Mandrake was apparently breaking the law
by including KDE with a Red Hat distro. Yet all of these components can and
do exist in the typical Linux distro.[1]
I am not going to claim Harry and his group are saints in trying to come
forward. They have an agenda they can't control. But, by the Goddess, give
them some slack for trying! They're never going to appease the FSF high
priests so they aren't wasting their time with them, instead focusing on the
less fanatical majority of APL, MPL, BSD etc and their lesser priests.
No *software* company with an eye towards positive cash flow can afford to
release *current* software under the GPL.[2] And the FSF high priests won't
accept anything less than seeing Sender-ID released under it. So, in the
name of moving on, the FSFers can just give up on these guys and focus their
efforts on SPF1, which looks like a better candidate for GPL righteousness.
Let the rest of the MARID group finish their work, already. Implementers
like myself will decide which to use, or maybe use both.
[1] Some have argued that's the reason Linux hasn't reached the desktop in
significant numbers yet. That's a discussion for a different forum, however.
[2] I say "current" because successful companies have released kit under the
GPL, but only long after its shelf life has expired, or if it has no bearing
on their cash flow such as hardware sales. I'd like to see some examples
that defy this claim, but only in private mail, please.
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Sometimes it's hard to tell where the game ends and where reality bites,
er, begins. <http://vmyths.com/resource.cfm?id=50&page=1>