Subject: RE: DEPLOY: Microsoft Royalty Free Sender ID Patent License FAQ

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 17:21:54 -0700

> I'm sorry, but the [L]GPL incompatibility couldn't be more 
> unambiguous:
> 
> 1.  Choice of law restrictions, choice of venue restrictions, 
> and poison
>     pills are widely understood to be incompatible with the [L]GPL.

The issue for this group is whether the license restrictions are
reasonable or not. 

Compatibility with a specific license is not a requirement, still
less compatibility with fanciful interpretations thereof.

The language clause in the Patent license only affects the patent
license, it does not constrain the choice of law in the license 
terms of any code.

Asking for a professional lawyer to produce a license that does
not have a language clause to govern its own interpretation is a 
ridiculous demand.

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 12:53:16 +0200

On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 05:21:54PM -0700,
 Hallam-Baker, Phillip <[email-masked]> wrote 
 a message of 21 lines which said:

> Compatibility with a specific license is not a requirement, 

You're right, I do not think we can find somewhere in the IETF
documents such a requirment.

But a licence which is incompatible with *every* free software
licence, while acceptable if you follow IETF rules by the book, would
be in practice ignored and never deployed, which is certainly not
MARID's goal.

---

From: Koen Martens <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 22:25:05 +0200

> less compatibility with fanciful interpretations thereof.

I do agree, although the focus has been on compatibility with any number
of open source licenses, this is not the main point. The point is: the
license restrictions are not reasonable. Asking implementors to sign a
contract with microsoft will scare implementors away. Perhaps this is
the whole point of the license.

The license might be perfectly reasonable for big companies. It is not
for smaller ones or people who write software on their personal title.
Are you just telling those (the small companies and individual
developers) to shut up and accept what is being shoved down their
throat?

That would be a waste, and I want to repeat this. By persisting on this
signed contract, microsoft scares away developers and splits the
potential resources, in fact doing more against than for a better use of
email worldwide.

Koen Martens

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