FreeTDS Development Group

[Craig Berry <craigberry AT mac.com>]

On Wednesday, May 28, 2008, at 11:18AM, "Dossy Shiobara" <dossy AT panoptic.com> 
wrote:
>On 2008.05.28, James K. Lowden <jklowden AT freetds.org> wrote:
>> Thank you for pointing out this patent.  I wish I'd never read it.  It
>> means that Microsoft is patenting its changes to the protocol.  It is the
>> first step to preventing the creation of a compatible, interoperable
>> implementation of their protocol.  
>
>Huh?  Did you read this page:
>
>    
> http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/intellectualproperty/protocols/mcpp.mspx

I can't find anything there indicating that TDS is considered to be one of 
the MCPP protocols.  It's not in the (presumably full) list of protocols 
mentioned in the license agreement for those availing themselves of the 
commercial license.  Perhaps it's merely a timing issue as the TDS patent is 
quite recent, but I don't see that this program currently offers licenses to 
anything governed by the TDS patent.

>So, you have two routes: obtain a patent license via the MCPP Licensing
>team, or for Open Source projects, you can simply accept the patent
>pledge.

IANAL, but it doesn't sound to me like it's at all compatible with the LGPL.  
So even if changes to the TDS protocol governed by the new patent became 
licensable under MCPP, I doubt if the FreeTDS maintainers would be interested 
in all the necessary restrictions.

>This is quite pleasant, IMHO: commercial projects need to license, open
>source doesn't need to explicitly license.  

That may be your opinion, but unless I'm mistaken that's completely 
incompatible with the LGPL.  It sure sounds to me as if, to use the MCPP 
license, an open source project would have to give up the right to say who 
else can use their software (and under what terms) and grant that right to 
Microsoft.  I wonder what Samba is doing since CIFS is included in the MCPP 
protocols.

I'm no expert, and I haven't attempted to read the patent in full, but I 
don't see any good news here.