[Distribution trimmed]
"Sam" == Sam Varshavchik <mrsam(_at_)courier-mta(_dot_)com> writes:
Sam> It appears that IETF's contemporary policies do not prevent
Sam> the sponsor/advocates from including patented IP material
Sam> into standards-track specifications, without even requiring
Sam> the sponsor to actually enumerate and identify their
Sam> intellectual property
How is this worse that if Microsoft hadn't been involved in the MARID
group and the WG had come up with a similar proposal independently.
In that case you wouldn't have even known about the patent claims, but
it wouldn't have made them less relevent.
Sam> It will not be possible for me to implement Sender ID in
Sam> Courier. Courier is licensed under the GPL. The FSF already
Sam> flatly stated that Microsoft's IP license is not GPL
Sam> compatible.
That would be unforunate, and I think also misguided.
The licenses may well be technically incompatible, but that effects
no-one but Microsoft. You, as the distributor of courier, will only
be distributing code under the GPL. You will _not_ be granting rights
under the Sender ID patent grant, and more to the point you will not
(I assume) be making any patent claims on Sender ID.
The only entity that _might_ have to worry about the compatibility of
the licenses is Microsoft, and given they don't tend to distribute
much third-party GPL'd code, I suspect they can live with that.
IANAL, I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. See also my recent
post to the MARID list on this subject.
-roy