On Thu, 2004-09-02 at 01:47, Yakov Shafranovich wrote:
[snip]
On a followup note, I sincerely hope that this quote is NOT entirely
true (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1639576,00.asp):
"Allman also isn't optimistic about Microsoft making Sender ID
open-source friendly. "It's pretty clear that it's going to take an act
of whatever deity Microsoft worships in order to get them to back down
on the sublicensing issue. They made it absolutely clear to us that they
were not even going to consider changing this, and the legal folks made
it further clear that they would rather see Sender ID die than back down."
It would be nice to get a confirmation from Eric Allman as to whether
or not this article got it right or misquoted him. Because if it is
true, I would like to know why the Sendmail, Inc. position on Sender-ID
posted opened with:
"Sendmail, Inc. has worked with Microsoft to help them produce a
patent license that will be acceptable for ourselves, the IETF and
the open source community at large."
because the two statements are clearly not consistent.
Please, if we are to assume participants in this list are acting in
good faith, then all members need to honor that. If Microsoft never had
any intention of making this license FOSS friendly, then why wasn't that
stated from the beginning?
I agree with Gordon Fecyk in this case. I smell another Rambus. And
I do hope the IETF follows through with what Gordon was assured of at
IETF 59...that this behaviour willl not be tolerated.
And from http://www.imc.org/ietf-mxcomp/mail-archive/msg03750.html:
"Finally, some participants have outright stated that they are
interested only in the advancement of a competing specification
to Sender ID while others have not said so much but have taken
a similar tone. This is most offensive and counter to the notion
of finding a consensus-based standard. Many individuals in this
working group have worked very hard to find common ground, and
this unilateralism is unfair to them. If it is your intent to be
unwavering and steadfast in your opinion no matter the discourse
of the issues, we ask that you disengage from this working group."
If the article has it right about what Eric said and Eric has it right
about what Microsoft (and particularly its legal folks) said, then I'd
say the above statement about being 'unwavering and steadfast in your
opinion no matter the discourse of the issues' applies to this situation
quite readily. (Though I'm not all impying anything about Harry, Jim,
or any other Microsoft employees on this list.)
--
-Paul Iadonisi
Senior System Administrator
Red Hat Certified Engineer / Local Linux Lobbyist
Ever see a penguin fly? -- Try Linux.
GPL all the way: Sell services, don't lease secrets