[I have my own comments about all this but they are not for public list,
but I'll hint you that while SenderID license may well be resolved soon,
this may actually make matters worth for opensource internet community
if you look at the larger perspective of what Microsoft is up to]
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1714680,00.asp
Is Microsoft Ready to Assert IP Rights over the Internet?
By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
November 5, 2004
Has Microsoft been trying to retroactively claim IP (intellectual
property) rights over many of the Internet's basic protocols? Larry J.
Blunk, senior engineer for networking research and development at Merit
Network Inc., believes that might be the case.
Blunk expressed these concerns about Microsoft's Royalty Free Protocol
License Agreement in a recent note to the IETF's Intellectual Property
Rights Working Group. Specifically, Blunk suggested that Microsoft seemed
to be claiming IP rights to many vital Internet protocols. And by so
doing, "Microsoft is injecting a significant amount of unwarranted
uncertainty and doubt regarding non-Microsoft implementations of these
protocols," Blunk said.
Blunk pointed out that Microsoft is claiming some form of IP rights over
"a total of 130 protocols which Microsoft is offering for license."
Many of the listed protocols are [IETF] RFC [request for comment]
documents, including but not limited to the core TCP/IP v4 and TCP/IP v6
protocol specifications," he said in his note.
Some of the RFC protocols that Microsoft asserts that it may have IP
rights over, such as the TCP/IP protocols and the DNS (Domain Name
System), form the very bedrock of the Internet's network infrastructure.
"Microsoft does not specify how this list of protocols was derived and to
what extent they have investigated their possible rights holdings over
these protocols," Blunk said. "The list appears to be a near but not
completely exhaustive list of public protocols implemented in Microsoft
product"
It is quite likely that an individual or organization would be intimidated
into signing the license agreement simply due to Microsoft's vast
financial and legal resources," he said
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20041107154122603
...
Meanwhile, Microsoft is quietly moving forward with its patent plans.
News.com has a fascinating article that quotes a spokesman as saying that
they are seeking to enter into cross-licensing deals with the top 30
technology companies, so that they can have access to the patents they are
most interested in and can offer their customers indemnification from
patent infringement lawsuits. How charming. A little club. The "We Are
The Only Ones Allowed to Write Software Any More"
...
Speaking of anticompetitive moves, by now you have seen the eWeek report
on Microsoft's Royalty Free Protocol License Agreement on Internet
protocols and the Larry Blunk email that started it all. Larry Rosen has
noted that this license appears to be like the Sender ID license, which
means that the obvious remedy is for standards bodies to stand firm
against this license.
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&selm=2Z7Tb-70A-9%40gated-at.bofh.it
...
I also briefly met with Ryan Hamlin, the GM of Microsoft's Safety
Technology & Strategy group, and he's interested in attempting a second
try at the patent license negotiation between us (well, Larry Rosen) and
a more senior attorney at Microsoft. So, it may not be entirely
hopeless that Sender ID be entirely usable by open source.
--
Daniel Quinlan ApacheCon! 13-17 November (3 SpamAssassin
http://www.pathname.com/~quinlan/ http://www.apachecon.com/ sessions & more)