ietf-mxcomp
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Re: DEPLOY/IPR: Fundamental Disagreements, or Get On With It

2004-08-24 18:35:11

On Tue, 2004-08-24 at 20:52, Gordon Fecyk wrote:
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.

  "GNU/FSF camp" people also have business to run.

  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).

  I, at least, never criticized them for trying.  I know full well that
individually they do not control what Microsoft does.  But they are the
ones on this list, so any feedback on this license goes to them, and
appropriately so.

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.

  Irrelevant, and at least with respect to the 'monetary' part, untrue.

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]

  Aside from the fact that you've misrepresented every event in the
preceding paragraph, how is this relevant?

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.

  Giving them slack does not mean acquiescing to an unacceptable patent
license.  And I do hope that by 'high priests' you are not referring to
me or others who have posted valid concerns regarding this license
without resorting to ad hominem attacks like calling them high priests
of anything.
  I don't deny that I'm an a GPL advocate and proud of it.  That's clear
from my signature.  But it is not relevant except inasmuch as it effects
my business and my ability to implement this standard.

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.

  More vitriol and again largely irrelevant discussion about business
models.  No one is asking Microsoft or anyone else to release *current
software* or any software under the GPL.  Only that we be allowed to
write or modify GPL software to support whatever standard this WG comes
up with.  The patent license in its current form does not permit this.
  Giving up is not an option in this particular case because this is a
*standards* process, not a mere discussion on whether or not one
business model is better than another or one license is better than
another.
-- 
-Paul Iadonisi
 Senior System Administrator
 Red Hat Certified Engineer / Local Linux Lobbyist
 Ever see a penguin fly?  --  Try Linux.
 GPL all the way: Sell services, don't lease secrets