On Mon, 2004-08-30 at 17:07, Roy Badami wrote:
"Paul" == Paul Iadonisi <pri(_dot_)marid(_at_)iadonisi(_dot_)to> writes:
Even if Sender ID is incompatible with the GPL [2] -- and I'm
skeptical that it is except under the most extreme
interpretations --
Paul> And we have yet to see a convincing legal argument (or
Paul> *any* legal argument) from an attorney posted to this list.
Paul> I'd like to know what Anne Mitchell (on this list) thinks of
Paul> her legal analysis being called extreme by a non-lawyer.
Ok, here's my argument:
(1) Imagine you don't sign the patent license. In that case, the
license clearly has no effect on you. The question is, does the
existence of a patent claim prevent you from distributing under
the GPL anyway.
It is possible to interpret the GPL such that it does, since you
are not in a position to offer rights to redistribute, although
it's not clear (to me) that this is what the GPL intends.
This may even be the correct interpretation of the GPL, however I
call it an 'extreme' position because under that position it is
also unlawful to distribute the Linux kernel, since it seems
likely from recent reparts that there are a substantial number of
patent claims against it. In fact, this is likely to be true of
most non-trivial GPL'd software.
(2) Now imagine that you _have_ signed the Sender ID license. The
Sender ID license doesn't require you to place any restrictions on
the recipient of the software, as far as I can see the situation
with GPL compliance is no different to (1)
To be cynical there is a difference, as Sender-ID can not be transferred
and requires an individual agreement for its use:
Imagine Microsoft acquires 49% of the shares for company 'V'. Microsoft
then transfers Sender-ID patent rights to company 'V' with a private
agreement for unlimited use of this algorithm. Are the licenses with
Microsoft still valid when rights are now held by company 'V'? The
license was with Microsoft, but now Microsoft says "Sorry, company 'V'
now owns the rights for that algorithm, and we gave them the list of
companies we know to be using this technology." You will be receiving
their demands in the mail.
-or-
Imagine Microsoft no longer feels generous and changes these agreements
to be the equivalent of the third-world debt. Does this make Exchange
with Microsoft clients look better? Sender-ID by itself may break both
SMTP and DNS with clumsy TXT lookups and complex macro scripts, but with
the legal wrench thrown in, Bob's your uncle.
-Doug