Larry Blunk, a developer and researcher for Merit Network, wrote an email on 30 October outlining his concerns to the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the Intellectual Property working group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the body which is responsible for the maintenance and evolution of the Internet.
In the email he states that Microsoft's Royalty Free Protocol License Agreement is offering for licence 130 Internet protocols, many of which are RFC documents -- notes that are submitted to the IETF by various individuals, and may become Internet standards. Microsoft's agreement covers core protocols such as TCP/IP, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Simple Network Management Protocol v2 (SNMP), Domain Name System and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol v3 (LDAP).
In the agreement, Microsoft states it is offering these protocols for licence "under any applicable intellectual property rights that Microsoft may have" and that the licence enables the individual to "implement the protocol".
Blunk said he is concerned that this document may have an anti-competitive effect for protocols that have been implemented many different times.
"It is my concern that by merely suggesting they may hold applicable rights to these protocols, Microsoft is injecting a significant amount of unwarranted uncertainty and doubt regarding non-Microsoft implementations of these protocols," said Blunk. "It is quite likely that an individual or organization would be intimidated into signing the licence agreement simply due to Microsoft's vast financial and legal resources."
He also highlighted concerns about the conditions that are outlined by the licence agreement which restrict how software can be marketed by those who implement a server.
"Of additional concern is the onerous and restrictive conditions attached to the licence agreement," said Blunk. "The "Server Software" requirement and definition, including such amorphous concepts as how software is "marketed", would likely exclude many open-source and embedded software implementations."
The licence agreement's restriction on compliance of technical could thwart future innovation in Internet technology, said Blunk.
"The Technical Documentation compliance requirement would, in a number of cases, cause implementations to interoperate poorly, or not at all, due to flaws and errors in the RFC documents," said Blunk. "Further, it would prohibit researchers from making enhancements and improvements to the protocols."
Blunk said that through Microsoft's apparent claims to rights over the Internet protocols it has not respected the rights of the original authors of the RFC documents, and implies that these authors may have breached Microsoft's copyright.
"In my opinion, it also shows a lack of respect for the authors' rights and the terms on which they submitted these documents to the IETF," said Blunk. "Further, it unfairly implies the authors may have illegally [sic] incorporated Microsoft copyrighted material without giving the authors a chance to refute such implications."
A Microsoft spokeswoman said on Tuesday that Microsoft is currently looking into this issue.
"We’ve read and reviewed Mr. Blunk’s letter and are actively discussing the letter with both the IAB and Mr. Blunk to appropriately address the issues he’s raised," said the spokeswoman. "While we believe that this is a case of honest confusion we want to make sure that our responses and overall commitment to furthering standards development are clear."
The spokeswoman said the company provides the Royalty Free Protocol License Agreement in order to satisfy its obligation with standard-setting organisations.
"In conjunction with the MSDN protocol licence, Microsoft continues to hold to its policy of extending a royalty-free licence with terms that satisfy any obligation Microsoft has as a result of the company’s participation in a standards setting organization – like the IETF," said the spokeswoman.
The spokeswoman did not respond to a request for more information on how the list of Internet protocols was derived, and was unable to provide proof on its rights to these protocols.
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Talkback
Reminds me of SCO. Making lots of claims but lacks proof.
In short it comes down to Microsoft wanting their customers to sign an agreement they're not fully sure of themselves. It's just a confusion (illusion?). Well ok, show me the proof first then I'll consider (not) signing it.
What's perfectly clear already though is that signing this Microsoft agreement will, in any case, weaken your position as a Microsoft customer. Because why go thru all the hazzle of making your customers sign an agreement that's about nothing? And, if it's a real benefit for their customers it wouldn't have been an agreement. It would have been a Public Relations press release.
Microsoft are scared of LInux, plain and simple.
They can't beat linux, they can't write better software and they can't buy/bride/threaten anyone or the movement as a whole so they do the only other things they can think of - play dirty ("Get the FUD", "independant case studies" etc), and playing dirty is definately not new terrioty for them.
It is long past time that laws be enacted to deal with FUD. Some of these claims may even approach the legal definition of fraud. Can Microsoft be sued for "Slander of Title" (or something like it) for publically laying clain to IP but not declaring its legal rights? Or can estopple be used to prevent Microsoft from suiing someone who "violates" its IP rights when Microsoft did not properly identify them (by patent number). Microsofts license offer is a form of public disclosure of its IP claims yet it does not state the legal basis (patent numbers) for those claims. Should be able to safely ignore this type of claim? Should companies be allowed to cast doubt on the property rights of others by such vague and general references?
Something needs to be fixed/
Excellent comment.
This sort of tactic can land one in jail if it's practided in the legal or financial sector. FUD and astroturfing in the IT and IP sector should be illegal with very severe penalties.
This is as much a crime as violating client privilege, sellling swamp land in Florida or misreporting financial results.