On Monday, August 30, 2004 11:42 PM, Rand Wacker wrote:
As part of our broad-reaching effort to spur the testing and
eventual broad adoption of sender-based email authentication
to address fraud and spam in email, Sendmail, Inc. is
releasing an open source implementation of the IETF's Sender
ID specification for testing on the Internet.
I want to congratulate Sendmail on the completion and release of their
Sender ID milter. I think this is a great step forward!
I'd also like to address a number of points that have been made on this
thread and on others in recent days.
First, a reminder. Answer 4 of the FAQ which I published to this list
on August 23 (available at
http://www.imc.org/ietf-mxcomp/mail-archive/msg03497.html) says:
"At this time Microsoft is only aware of pending patent application
claims that cover its submission of the Sender ID specification.
Because Microsoft is not aware of any issued patent claims, Microsoft
does not require any one to sign a license with Microsoft to implement
the Sender ID specification or any part of it that is incorporated into
IETF working drafts. In conformance with the IETF IPR policy Microsoft
has disclosed the existence of those pending patent claims and has
provided its assurance that if such claims are granted Microsoft will
make licenses available on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.
Microsoft has also gone beyond the IETF's requirements by clarifying
that its licenses will requires no fees or other royalties, and further,
to make a license available to early adopters who wish at their option
to clarify their rights with Microsoft with respect to early
implementations. Typically patent holders do not make their license
terms available until after the standard has been adopted and until
after their patent claims have been granted, leaving early implementers
to speculate as to the ultimate terms of the license. "
Second as per the terms of the license itself, End Users who are
recipients of a licensed implementation of Sender ID and distributors
who are redistributing a branded licensed implementation do not need to
separately sign this License Agreement.
Finally we have committed to a royalty free license. That means
Microsoft will never charge a royalty or licensing fee to anyone using
the Sender ID necessary patent claims to implement the Sender ID
specification.