Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
It will not take a valid legal argument to derail
the widespread deployment of any standard that comes from
this working group. All that is needed is the, perhaps
unfounded, fear that implementing SenderID or any other
standard with nebulous IPR issues is going to bite the user
in a tender area.
An unfounded claim can certainly block progress. But an
unsubstantiated claim cannot.
It is not sufficient to say 'we don't like it'
This is no longer simple unsubstantiated. Two prominent open source
*lawyers* have expressed their expert opinion that this license is not
compatible with open source software:
http://www.imc.org/ietf-mxcomp/mail-archive/msg03678.html
The facts are on the table: this license is potentially not usable with
open source software. This is something that will affect deployment
since anyone using open source will be hesistating before
implementation. Whether their interpretation is correct is irrelevant -
the fact that multiple lawyers are not arguing about it, only makes the
legal issue more confusing, thus delaying deployment.
Yakov