Andrew Newton wrote:
- Some of the participants have speculated openly that Microsoft's
IPR claims might also cover the SPF syntax even though Microsoft has
not specifically attributed their claim to draft-ietf-marid-protocol.
I was one of those people who openly speculated about Microsoft usurping
SPF. Only yesterday, Stephane Bortzmeyer said:
"You can say that every SPF implementation (there are many, see
http://spf.pobox.com/downloads.html) is an implementation of
Sender-ID's -protocol."
(I am not exactly sure how serious Stephane was, so I leave that in the
middle). But I had just voiced, the other day, precisely this worry: that,
ere long, Microsoft, integrating SPF checks with Sender ID, might come to
look upon SPF (not perhaps its syntax, but its use in object-code), as part
of Sender ID.
Given statements like the above, I cannot say my concerns are alleviated.
Given that Microsoft's patent application and original IPR claim
covered a Caller ID document which used XML and not SPF, is this a
reasonable assumption?
How realistic is this? IANAL, either. Which is why I would love to hear a
lawyer say here, that such "usurpation" cannot possibly occur within the
current license.
This is an area, btw, where I will gladly stand corrected. ;)
- Mark
System Administrator Asarian-host.org
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"If you were supposed to understand it,
we wouldn't call it code." - FedEx