Subject: RE: In favour of Sender ID (was: DEPLOY: SPF/Sender ID support in Courier.)

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 10:13:06 -0700

> Ahh. Yes, I missed that.  I think the GPL specifically answers this
> question:
> 
> http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/gpl.html
> 
>  "Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by 
> software patents.
>   We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free 
> program will
>   individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program
>   proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that 
> any patent must
>   be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all."

Sender-ID is licensed for everyone's free use and it is not 
necessary for individual users or distributors of the program
to obtain independent licenses.

It is very clear to me that the SenderID license is not a
genuine impediment here. The impediments are being created by
people who want to see them.

---

From: Alan Hodgson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 11:01:38 -0700

> to obtain independent licenses.

The license claims to grant a "non-transferable, non-sublicenseable" right to
distribute source code copies of Licensed Implementations.  That strongly
implies, to me at least (IANAL), that distributors require their own licences.
Legal opinions provided on the list to date appear to agree. 

-- 
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take
everything you have ... the course of history shows that as a government
grows, liberty decreases." -- Thomas Jefferson

---

From: Kevin Peuhkurinen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 14:03:31 -0400

>to obtain independent licenses.
Royalty-free does not mean "free".   In exchange for one of these 
licenses, you give up significant rights.  

>people who want to see them.
Perhaps you haven't read Microsoft's updated Sender-ID license FAQ:

Q15: Is Microsoft s Royalty Free Sender ID Patent License compatible 
with the GPL?

A: Unlike other open source software licenses, the GPL includes a 
provision that appears to prohibit the distribution of code that is 
subject to patent licenses that are not sub-licensable and/or are 
limited for a particular purpose like implementing a specification. 
While almost all open source licenses require that the code be freely 
modifiable and redistributable with or without modification, only the 
GPL appears to expressly prohibit distribution of code if those 
requirements can not be satisfied. Microsoft's Royalty Free Sender ID 
Patent License Agreement does not prohibit the use of any open source 
license including the GPL. However, because the Royalty Free Sender ID 
Patent License Agreement is offered for implementation, distribution and 
use of the specification, Microsoft believes that the GPL would prohibit 
the distribution of this patented technology.

(Although I believe that use of this text falls under 'fair use', I may 
be in violation of Microsoft's copyrights by pasting this excerpt from 
their FAQ.   To mitigate my own and your liability, please snip this 
section from any replies)

---

From: Paul Iadonisi <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 14:16:34 -0400

On Wed, 2004-09-01 at 13:13, Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:

[snip]

> people who want to see them.

  So because there are many people, include three attorneys, who
disagree with your interpretation, they just 'want to see them'?  In
other words, are you saying they are imagined impediments?
  I, for one, am getting a little tired of seeing posts like this that
basically accuse those opposed of this license of making things up.
--
-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

---

From: Koen Martens <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 20:50:29 +0200

> Legal opinions provided on the list to date appear to agree. 

That is how I understand the license too. Sure, microsoft may not sue
just anybody who does not comply with their terms, but if they can for
their own benefit they will. If they can damage for example linux in
any way by misusing this patent ordeal, they will!

Please don't give me this 'assume all members of the list act in good
faith': microsoft is not even a member of this list. 

Really, i've had it with this workgroup. Despite a flood of messages
protesting against senderid both technically and on the matter of
licenses, the chairs keep pushing for senderid, which in my turn makes
me wonder who really runs this show: the ietf or microsoft.

And if you're not in favour of senderid, you are kindly asked to just
leave. Well, maybe that's what we all should do, that'll surely get
MARID adopted world-wide.

Good bye.

-- 
K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
Networking, embedded systems, unix expertise, artificial intelligence.
Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc
Wondering about the funny attachment your mail program
can't read? Visit http://www.openpgp.org/

---

From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 15:00:49 -0400

> to obtain independent licenses.

While that may be true, nevertheless several attorneys have stated that 
Sender-ID is not compatible with the GPL and other open source licenses. 
With all due respect, until I hear from another attorney otherwise, 
those opinions carry a lot of weight over others who are not attorneys 
including myself. Add to this the opinion of Microsoft lawyers as well. 
Perhaps Verisign's legal counsel disagrees and we'll be happy to hear 
his or her opinion, if you can obtain it for us.

In the context of this standard, once again the question is whether the 
IPR issue cause problems with deployment. Judging from announcements 
made by various companies in the last few days, it seems that the big 
boys have no problems with this. However, ISPs and domain owners are the 
ones who will be publishing these records, and it remains to be seen 
whether the IPR issue will delay their rollout. The very fact that 
people are confused about the license, already points to potential problems.

> people who want to see them.

In my personal opinion any IPR Microsoft may be claiming can only be 
based directly on ASRG discussions and other related mailing lists, as 
well as IETF drafts. I also agree with Hadmut that the PRA "agorithm" is 
too obvious and additionally, it looks very much like fetchmail's 
"algorithm".

Therefore, IMHO, this situtation is starting to smell just like the case 
of the IDN WG described in RFC 3669 - a company following progress of 
the working group (or in this case a research group) and then patenting 
ideas coming up in the discussion. In the case of IDN, the IPR claims 
were dismissed as worthless and the standard moved along. Whether this 
is a viable option for this WG, is something that remains to be seen.

<rant>
One thing that keeps bugging me is how hiddenly all of this came about. 
Phil, you of all people always made sure to include a disclaimer on any 
potential idea that Verisign might seek to patent coming out of ASRG 
discussions. Microsoft employees did not do that simple courtesy 
(whether Microsoft's lack of disclosure granted rights to the IETF is 
something I will leave to the lawyers). This creates a precedent and a 
chilling effect on the operation of the entire IETF community which *is 
not a good thing*. Should we now worry about every single potential 
patent that might be filed on our discussions just because some company 
decides to sic their lawyers on it?

I am not blaming any of the Microsoft employees that were involved in 
this. Quite the opposite, I am very impressed with what they have done 
for us and the steps they took. I would like to commend Bob, Harry, 
George, Jim and others for pushing this and agreeing to work within the 
IETF process when other options were available. Nevertheless, whoever is 
responsible for this IPR issue at Microsoft, perhaps the lawyers, should 
have told us earlier about this, and published the license long before 
the last call period started. It would have made things much easier for 
all parties involved.
</rant>

Yakov