taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

Patents: DCC (Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse) is a venerable, and widely-used anti-spam system created by Vernon Schryver; we’ve supported it in SpamAssassin for yonks.

It now appears that DCC is now no longer open source software; it’s still free for personal and noncommercial use, but this clause has been added to the new license text:

This agreement is not applicable to any entity which sells anti-spam solutions to others or provides an anti-spam solution as part of a security solution sold to other entities, or to a private network which employes DCC or uses data provided by operation of DCC but does not provide corresponding data to other users.

So there’s talk that those commercial users should now license it – interestingly, from another company called Commtouch, not Vernon’s Rhyolite Software. (More info).

It appears that the license change is part of an agreement with Commtouch, owner of US Patent 6,330,590, a patent on the idea of hash-sharing antispam techniques. (I haven’t read the patent due to ASF and other policies so I can’t tell you what it really covers.)

It looks like we’ll be disabling DCC’s use in SpamAssassin by default, as we did with Razor, as a result. (Our policy is that the default ruleset used in SpamAssassin be usable by anyone who can use our software, so that the normal usage is open source by default, rather than subsets of the overall functionality.)

Tags: commtouch, dcc, default, license, part, patent, patents, software, solution, spamassassin, use

Patents: Sun files for patents on per-employee software pricing plans (/.). ‘Method for licensing software to an entity, including determining a per-employee cost for the software, determining a number of employees of the entity, and determining a total licensing cost using the number of employees and the per-employee cost, wherein the total licensing cost comprises a software license for all employees of the entity and all customers of the entity.’

But, in my opinion, here’s the good news — this is a patent on a license agreement. In other words, this is a new front for patents — the field of law.

Once the lawyers start running into situations where trivial concepts in their license agreements are patented, you can be sure the situation will start to turn around. ;)

Tags: cost, entity, license, licensing, method, number, opinion, patents, pricing, software, sun

Spam: Yahoo!’s DomainKeys proposal for sender auth.

I’m in the UK this week, so commenting in detail isn’t too easy right now. But briefly, the big problem I foresee for DK is dealing with mailing lists and forwarders.

I did spot this oddity in the patent license, though:

Yahoo! will grant a royalty-free, worldwide, non-exclusive license under any Yahoo! patent claims that are essential to implement or use any Implementations so that licensees can make, use, sell, offer for sale, import, or yodel Implementations; provided that the licensee agrees not to assert against Yahoo!, or any other Yahoo! licensees of Implementations, any patent claims of licensee that are essential to implement or use any Implementations.

My emphasis. “Yodel”? ;)

But seriously — patents will make implementation of this tricky for open-source projects, unless those terms are extended to allow the license to be transferable and usable indefinitely.

Patents: argh. That’s all I can say for now. :(

Tags: auth, domainkeys, implementations, license, licensee, patent, proposal, sender, spam, yahoo, yodel

Spam: the Caller-ID specs are now up on www.microsoft.com. Note patent license.

Tags: caller, com, license, microsoft, patent, spam, www

Social: It’s a blogsplosion! (neologism, Creative Commons license, cheers.)

First off, we have Old Rottenhat, a fantastic group-weblog featuring several old mates of mine, musing on music (Eoghan), psychogeography (Delaney), quitting work (Dr.), and random comments (Krossie). It’s great reading.

Next, Tom has finally set us up the blog in the form of Linux and Goblins, ‘your home for neither of the above’, with some trademark Tom-style moaning, half-baked ideas, and pestering of some politician git called Phillip Boucher-Hayes.

Both are now firmly ensconced in the sidebar, and on my daily list… an RSS feed for Old Rottenhat can be found here, and I’ll be making one for Tom too when I get the chance.

Tags: blogsplosion, commons, creative, eoghan, license, mine, music, neologism, old, rottenhat, social

Habeas: Avalend, Intermark Media, BigDogSecrets.com, Clickbank, and Keynetics Sued for Using Counterfeit Habeas Trademark to get Unwanted Email Through, Trademark Infringement, and Breach of Contract.

The first suit, against Avalend and Intermark Media, alleges infringement of the Habeas trademark, including infringing use of the Habeas trademark in email in order to help ensure its delivery. The second lawsuit, against Heller, Stuchinski, Clickbank and Keynetics, includes a breach of contract claim against Heller, based on the signing of a Habeas license and then using the Habeas trademark in email which did not comply with the Habeas license. The companies advertised in Heller’s email are named as co-defendants.

Sweet. Sounds like the first two are alleged to have out-and-out forged the mark without a license, and the latter three are alleged to have gained a license and breached it. Habeas’ business model relies on successful enforcement, and actively being a threat against spammers who attempt to abuse their mark. I hope this goes well for them.

BTW, for folks who cannot countenance the idea of paying for a mark to send bulk mail: Habeas’ model is just like that of Underwriters Laboratories, which performs (physical) product safety testing, and provides a mark to certify that a product has passed those tests — and can therefore be judged ’safer’ than products that do not have the mark. In Habeas’ case, instead of a product’s safety, they vouch for a mail’s non-spamminess.

It’s not a ‘mail protection racket’ — it’s a way for you to send a mail saying ‘this trustworthy agency has vouched that this is not spam’. And if I trust Habeas, it allows me to extend that trust to you, even if I’ve never heard of you before.

Tags: avalend, email, habeas, heller, intermark, license, mail, mark, product, trademark

Bitstream Vera released as a beta. The full release, sometime next month, will use an extremely open license. To quote the FAQ:

Are derivative works allowed?

Yes!

I want to sell a software package that uses these fonts: Can I do so?

Sure. Bundle the fonts with your software and sell your software with the fonts. That is the intent of the copyright.

Hey presto — open source fonts! Good work by Jim Gettys, Bitstream and GNOME in making these available.

Tags: beta, bitstream, bundle, faq, intent, license, month, package, release, software

This promo calendar for an Italian coffin manufacturer has been doing the blog-rounds recently — and the more eagled-eyed viewer might have wondered at the words MIKE LEAVE ME ALONE written on the back of the last model.

Well, wonder no more — an italian Forteana subscriber, Giuseppe de Nicolellis, has got to the bottom of it. Case closed!

Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 23:31:25 +0200
From: “Giuseppe de Nicolellis” (spam-protected)
To: (spam-protected)
Subject: Sex and death: mystery solved

> http://www.cofanifunebri.it/sexy-calendario.htm - somewhat unlikely
> promo calendar from an Italian coffin manufacturer.
>
> So do you fancy giving them a call and finding out why the last model has “MIKE
> LEAVE ME ALONE” written on her back?

The webmaster of www.cofanifunbri.it has just answered my enquiry. He published the image more than an year ago without the writing. A few months ago he received this e-mail from a website offering adult contents for webmasters:

Do you have a license to use this image? I do not have a license on file for:

Registrant: Matteucci Maurizio (COFANIFUNEBRI-DOM) Villa Bastilica, 30 Roma, 00148 IT

Please let me know if you have purchased the license under a different name, or please remove the image from your site.

Thanks, Mikey PhoenixContent.com

(spam-protected)

Our webmaster decided to suggest him politely to f..ck off adding the writing on the back of the lady.

(Our webmaster didn’t explain whether he really stole the image from the website or not, and I didn’t dare to ask).

Another Fortean Mystery solved!

denic

Tags: alone, calendar, coffin, image, license, manufacturer, model, promo, webmaster, website