The IETF, MARID, Microsoft, patents, and Sender ID

[Paul Iadonisi]

  I'm weary.  I'm weary of folks who just don't get freedom.  And of
people who have no ethics.
  What I'm referring to is the recent battle over the Sender ID patent
that Microsoft filed and then stalled for as long as possible on
revealing the details and it's chosen license for the patent.
  It would take too long and bore some of you to death to go into all
the details.  If you are really interested, you can read the archives at
http://www.imc.org/ietf-mxcomp/mail-archive/maillist.html and some
coverage of the fiasco at Chuck Mead's Moongroup
(http://www.moongroup.com/).
  But I write this message to this group to say that, yes, we can make a
difference.  It's sad that MARID is terminating its work, but in my own
view it was a colossal failure primarily because the co-chairs and many
others in the working group chose to ignore the IPR issues until it was
too late.  They completely miscalculated the reaction of the majority of
the MTA developers...or should I say the developers of the MTAs that run
the majority of the internet.  News flash: that's one area that
Microsoft isn't even close to dominance (internet facing MTAs) and is
therefore one that they are going to fight hard, fairly or not, to
gain.  And that means making FOSS MTAs, particularly GPLed MTAs second
class internet citizens.
  I admonish everyone on this list who is capable to get involved in
standards groups.  It is clear from some of the posts by the co-chairs,
that The Apache Software Foundation's position is one of the major
factors that tilted the scale toward addressing the IPR problems in a
substantive way.  Unfortunately, the way it was address was completely
ineffective and still ignored the key problems.
  Get involved, because, at least with the IETF, the motto is 'rough
consensus and running code'.  There was no consensus and no foreseeable
consensus to come, so MARID has been disbanded.  I especially would like
to see people get involved who are involved with the Apache Software
Foundation, the Free Software Foundation, or the Open Source Institute. 
The ASF is particularly influential because of it's wide and far
deployment impact.  If Apache doesn't support it, then that's huge.  As
it was in this case.
  Richard Stallman posted to the list a while back and was slapped down
by the co-chairs.  Frankly, in this case, he absolutely should have been
allowed to say what he did.  It wasn't out of line at all.  And RMS is
correct about patents.  It's important to fight individual patents where
it matters, but the broader problem of software patents needs to be
fought as well.  This event in particular can be held up as a massive
failure that absolutely would not have happened if software patents were
not allowed, particularly patenting someone else's development, as was
clearly the case here.
  Frankly, there were a number of technical and practical problems with
the proposals on the table, anyhow.  But their resolutions were drowned
out by the IPR problems.
  So get out there and make a difference!
-- 
-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