On Tue, 2011-06-21 at 09:43 -0700, Stefano Maffulli wrote: > Interesting. From what I remember, ActiveSync was not released by > Microsoft under the Open Specification Promise and the specs were > toxic for free software. Is this implementation the result of 'looking > the packets on the cable' like samba does or something changed and > Microsoft now licenses this set of specs under a license compatible > with free software?
The latter. The documents (MS-ASCMD et al) now have the following "Intellectual Property Rights Notice": - Copyrights. This documentation is covered by Microsoft copyrights. Regardless of any other terms that are contained in the terms of use for the Microsoft website that hosts this documentation, you may make copies of it in order to develop implementations of the technologies described in the Open Specifications and may distribute portions of it in your implementations using these technologies or your documentation as necessary to properly document the implementation. You may also distribute in your implementation, with or without modification, any schema, IDL’s, or code samples that are included in the documentation. This permission also applies to any documents that are referenced in the Open Specifications. - No Trade Secrets. Microsoft does not claim any trade secret rights in this documentation. - Patents. Microsoft has patents that may cover your implementations of the technologies described in the Open Specifications. Neither this notice nor Microsoft's delivery of the documentation grants any licenses under those or any other Microsoft patents. So there is nothing to worry about on the copyright/licensing front. I've heard rumours about patents, and companies allegedly paying for licensing deals covering parts of the ActiveSync spec. However, having seen *our* implementation, I am confident that there is nothing here which could be patented even under the horribly corrupt and widely abused US system. All we're doing is saying to the server "tell me what happened since my last bookmark, and give me a new bookmark reflecting the current state". It's basically the same as IMAP CONDSTORE/QRESYNC and countless other obvious things before it. So perhaps the rumoured patents cover the undocumented older versions of the protocol, or cover things that we have not needed to implement to provide basic email/calendar/addressbook functionality, or cover things which are implemented on the server side (such as how they keep track of those 'bookmarks' for various clients). Either way, it seems that if anyone does try to claim that you are infringing on their patents when using *this* code, they are likely committing the criminal offence of fraud and you should report that to your local police immediately. -- dwmw2 _______________________________________________ SyncEvolution mailing list [email protected] http://lists.syncevolution.org/listinfo/syncevolution
