Re: AOL's stance on SenderID and IPR issues

It is my understanding that Yahoo is one of the largest (if not the largest) companies using qmail and there have been substantial discussions on this list in the last day that license terms may not compatible with that at all.

As Matt and others point out, this is irrelevant, as the license does not impact end-users of the code, only people who will redistribute it (which qmail doesn't allow anyways ;)

False.  One is permitted to distribute the original qmail package.  One can also distribute other people's patches to it, as long as their own respective licences, from their own respective authors, permit them to be redistributed of course.  (And indeed, this is exactly what happens right now with netqmail.)  Since the code covered by the purported Microsoft patent would be in a patch, not in qmail proper, Microsoft's patent licence would not affect qmail one whit.  qmail would be redistributable under the same terms as it is now.  Microsoft's patent licence would, however, affect the patch.  (The patch would have to be branded with a trademark.  It would have to be in object code, not source code, form.  It would have to be non-redistributable by "End Users" - the Microsoft patent licence does impact end users of the code - and thus couldn't be distributed under a licence such as the GPL.  And so on.) 

Moral: Don't go to an employee of Sendmail Inc. for correct information about qmail.  (-: